Everywhere I go, I see tulips.

In the Midwest, we had a godawful April.

The umbrellas barely had a chance to dry from one rainstorm before the next downpour started. Day after day: wet, cold, miserable.

Half of the people I know (including half of the people in my house) got COVID last month. The few who didn't succumb caught a weekslong upper respiratory infection that dragged on like an Allman Brothers song.

The Easter candy in the house seemed to be multiplying, so I decided to help the kids "finish it off." In unrelated news, I gained 5 pounds.

I also finalized their plans for summer vacation, which, somehow, only managed to make it feel even further off.

"It'll never be warm enough to swim in the pool," I thought, miserably, as I paid for the summer park district passes.

Trips to the gas station started costing $50, and we began regularly dropping $200 at the grocery store.

I used to hate hearing the word "COVID." Now it's "inflation."

Now, I'm not pretending to be some yokel who doesn't understand price increases. I get why things cost more. It makes sense.

After all, everyone quit or lost their job during the pandemic. Everyone who could moved. Everyone who could started working from home. We contracted, willfully, withdrew into ourselves and our homes and our families, and that's all very natural during a time when millions of people are dying.

And with fewer of us going around, going out, extending ourselves outward, companies have had to pay more. Hence, we have to pay more — dramatically more.

Still, though, it doesn't feel like our politicians responded in an equally dramatic fashion.

There was no dramatic increase in the minimum wage. There have been no dramatic efforts to improve health care coverage or increase the availability of child care.

There have been no job training programs, no help for those who want to start small businesses.

It's as if, one day, everyone in Washington decided that it was time for people to get back to normal.

"OK, leave your house," they seemed to say. "Buy things, go to work, take your kids to day care, the same as before."

The only problem was, nothing was the same as before.

I'm still waiting for people to stop arguing about critical race theory and gender theory and notice the only real issue: Neither Democratic nor Republican politicians will take any action to help anyone unless they are forced to do it.

They will not reform the corrupt campaign finance system in this country.

They will not increase wages, improve health care, subsidize child care or find ways to strengthen the job prospects of Americans.

They won't because they don't have to.

They need only make the appropriate noises about banned books and abortion and transgender issues, the noises those on their side want them to make, and everyone's placated for another news cycle.

They don't actually have to do anything.

In April, this seemed horribly predestined. As I slogged through the mud to drag my two shivering children to school, there was nothing I could do, nothing any of us could do, about the chill, about the rain.

But in May, everywhere I go, I see tulips.

They've been hiding all winter, deep underground. As the sun has emerged, chasing away the cold and snow, the flowers can bloom.

They can wake up, see the world for what it is, what it has always been.

But, somehow, though my world hasn't changed, the tulips have made it better.

It's their time, now, and maybe one day soon, it will be our time, as well.

Maybe one day, it will be May in America.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: Ruiterlijk at Pixabay