Just another day unlike any other

When I sit out back on the plot of land my Dad grew up on and his dad grew up on, in Oxford, Md., everything is right with the Universe.

Our girls are running barefoot in the grass, playing with their cousins--my sister's boys--the same way we did when we were little. I'm drinking a Shiner Spring Ale because it's spring. It's also Easter. And my 40th birthday.

Though spring is a time for flowers, and we transformed a cross with fresh-cut flowers this morning at church, right now for me it's a time for roots.

I've been thinking about family a lot this week, in part because my mom's father, when my mom was in the hospital getting ready to have me, sat in the waiting room and figured out all the times my birthday would fall on Easter. This is one of those times--a day Pop held in his mind 40 years ago.

As I'm watching the kids play, my Dad comes out back. We talk about growing up there and how they used to raise chuckers and chickens, how there were ponies and pheasant and we laugh thinking how the town of Oxford would receive that now. We talk about the Orioles and Nationals, who are both off to a good start.

When I was born, it was during an April ice storm. Today is green and 60 degrees. I don't mind global warming so much if it lets me sit outside with family on an Easter birthday.

There is another significance to April 8. Robin and I have been together for 17 years. She is the kind of person you change your life for and never wonder what life had been like if you'd never met.

Birthday, Easter, soul mate day. That's a trinity you can't claim on just any day. Just another day, unlike any other.

Ivan DeJesus

 
Ivan DeJesus. He was always a perplexing baseball card for me. I pronounced his name De-JEE-sus for about a year. Thinking it was pretty ballsy for someone to put Jesus's name in their own name.

I'm not sure why, but I frequently think about Ivan DeJesus around this time of year. Could be the preponderance of "Jesus" sprinkled through conversation via Easter; the fact that baseball season is in full swing (sorry); or some other connection I haven't pinned down yet.

It's an interesting thing, talking about/explaining Easter to kids. The rising from the dead thing, the killing Jesus in the first place, and then the whole why-the-fu*%-is-there-a-rabbit-hiding-eggs-in-our-house conundrum.

I dig Easter--for its timing, riding high on spring breezes and warming temps; for its colors and the girls rocking Easter dresses; for eyes lighting up on egg hunts and finding the strangely hidden eggs, the ones that are up high or supremely camouflaged; for the Easter egg that gets found a day or two after Easter.

I dig Easter for its focus on renewal. Our church has a tradition of covering an entire six- or seven-foot cross with flowers, to symbolize new life, where everyone brings in cut flowers and puts them on the cross. I can sit and stare at it for the whole service.

I dig Easter for the focus on faith. For contemplating life, death, sacrifice, rebirth, perspective, thanks.

Funny, I've always taken Easter and the resurrection as a metaphor for spiritual awakening or rebirth, not as an actual zombie-come-back-from-the-dead situation (I have seen folks tweeting about zombie Jesus). I guess it seems that if you dig what Jesus taught, how he lived his life, what he stands for, you don't need the resurrection as proof positive that he was right. You just take it at face value.

The rebirth/eternal life vibe is one that comes up in Christianity, Buddhism, etc. and I think each faith has something worthwhile to ponder on it.

Then again, what do I know. I spent a year thinking a guy's name was Ivan De-Jee-sus.