Aprils

A downpour just began outside my tipped-in window, after a day of blowing, drifting clouds and occasional sunny bursts of blue. The "bawbeebawbee" of an ambulance drifts in from a couple of blocks away, and the distinctively French 6-story, dormer-topped apartment buildings are framed by the brand-new leaves on the linden trees. he lilacs are just coming out around the neighborhood.
I love April.  I love rain. And lilacs.

Son #2's birthday always will make me think of lilacs. It happens this month, and the sixth one was momentous and memorable and especially lilac-ey. We woke up that morning with most of our belongings already trucked down to Skopje (Macedonia) from our 10-month gasthaus/home in Prishtina. We packed up the last few things and headed down the hill for an Albanian Easter service in a children's theatre, with people who had been believers 20 years at the most, many within the past few years, and who know Freedom in an indescribable way after generations of be-good-enough religion. We celebrated, we went back home to pick up our bag or two, brought them with us into our Trooper and headed to Skopje, where the lilacs were in full bloom.

It was always a little warmer in Skopje than in Prishtina, I suppose because of being 430 meters closer to the sea and on the outside of Luboten's circle of mountains. We finally had all our children and all our belongings under one roof, after weeks of back-and-forth hauling and Germany-and-back commuting. But the priority of the day, before unpacking and settling, was the sixth birthday.

Cake and ice cream, balloons, piratey table cloth...all in all a good day. And he liked his new bedroom and balcony.