It is spring in Boston and we all still have our shovels and ice scrapers at the ready lest we jinx the season. We smell the damp spring air. We see the crocuses in bloom, and our hearts sing just a little.

Spring is also Easter and Passover, and perhaps even more festive the marathon, but there is also a great somber shadow of the unpleasant anniversary.

There is a lot to celebrate: how far so many have come, how much more tightly our communities have become knit, how we have continued to live and be #BostonStrong.

Underneath it all, I still feel myself unravelling, so I’m just going to take it all in bit by bit. I’m going to try to be more aware of what I’m feeling and be ok with it not judge or smother it. I will eaf through the pages of my newly ordered book Bled For Boston. . Consider visiting or not, but maybe the items on display at the Boston Public Library. And popping in solo, or with my daughter, or solo to the Bled For Boston exhibit at BCAE.

And I’m going to revisit and reread Trouble Finding Joy because a year is a long time but as we get closer it seems like yesterday. We’re strong and we’re fragile. We need to be alone and we need one another.