Althouse: "It would be unlike me to write about the promise of spring without mentioning that spring is suicide season."

May 2, 2014

"It would be unlike me to write about the promise of spring without mentioning that spring is suicide season."

"There are a lot of theories about why spring has the most suicides, but the majority of the theories take into account the relationship between spring and loneliness."

The 3rd-to-the-last paragraph of "There’s a high price to hiding from the need to transition," at Penelope Trunk's blog.

Here's some friend-making advice: "circle... sniff... okay... from now on we'll be old friends."

11 comments:

campy said...: Suicide is a weapon in the War On Men.; 5/2/14, 6:55 AM
Illuninati said...: Why are there more suicides in spring? No body knows. Perhaps it is for the same reason that some people who take antidepressants are more prone to commit suicide. People don't know why that happens either but some postulate that as depression begins to lessen there is a dangerous transition period when the depressed person finally has the psychic energy to end his/her suffering permanently.; 5/2/14, 7:07 AM
carrie said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 5/2/14, 7:09 AM
Guildofcannonballs said...: April is the cruelest month.

A Well-Worn Story

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.

His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.

Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.

In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.

Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

-Dottie Parker; 5/2/14, 7:55 AM
Anonymous said...: This is a theme of great art.

The Waste Land
April is the cruelest Month

Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
Once I was a sentimental thing;
threw my heart away each spring.
Now a spring romance
hasn't got a chance.
Promised my first dance to winter.
All I've got to show's a splinter
for my little fling.

Spring this year has got me feeling
like a horse that never left the post.
I lie in my room
staring up at the ceiling.
Spring can really hang you up the most.

Morning's kiss wakes trees and flowers,
and to them I'd like to drink a toast.
But I walk in the park
just to kill the lonely hours.
Spring can really hang you up the most; 5/2/14, 8:00 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love and I shouldn't think too many people off themselves to avoid a happy sex life.; 5/2/14, 8:36 AM
wildswan said...: What I see out the window is brown dead twigs - I don't call that spring. What I feel in the air is raw wet chill - I don't call that spring. The daffodils are out - it's a known fact that they thrive in the nastiest part of spring like crocuses. The rabbit ate all the crocus flowers - I guess he thought it was spring, mmm, yum saffron. The air is filled with migrating birds going north to even chillier parts. Wisconsin spring is just like Wisconsin winter - only at 40 degrees warmer this season's temperature is above freezing. The thing I always think about is how amazingly, astoundingly green it will be here after all this cold brown and gray. It always happens.; 5/2/14, 9:26 AM
George M. Spencer said...: And before the electric age, spring saw the most births...; 5/2/14, 10:42 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: No one reads Trunk because they think she's a super career woman. People read Trunk because she's an excellent writer.; 5/2/14, 11:03 AM
mccullough said...: Tax season; 5/2/14, 12:07 PM
Lydia said...: Chaucer had the answer -- get thee on a pilgrimage!

When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;

When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,

And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in distant lands.

And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury went,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak; 5/2/14, 1:26 PM