An April Fool
How I got duped on my favorite day
I love a minor holiday, love making a hoopla out of something ordinary as part of a regular practice of celebration. And I especially love April Fools’ Day—my dad and I have long dubbed it “a day of free lying,” so much so that my sister refuses to speak to us the entire day. It’s such good fun—what other occasion are you going to get the BBC filming an entire segment about people harvesting their spaghetti trees?
My greatest achievement on April Fools’ occurred when I was a Resident Director and lived in a dorm with 200 college students. We did a lot of strange things to amuse ourselves during those days, but one of my favorites was the Queen of Fools contest, where we sent out individualized dares to anyone who chose to participate. The fools had the day to complete their dare, and then we gathered to tell the tales, crowning the winner the Queen of Fools. The entire day was my dream scenario—bizarre jokes playing out all around the small campus, people laughing at themselves and taking risks, and a night of raucous storytelling.
Although I have an aspiration of bringing this event to San Francisco, I haven’t quite made that happen yet. Besides a few attempts to prank my family and friends, it’s been a dormant season for me and this day o’ fools.
This year, I awoke on the first of April and saw a post from my friend Hannah with the comment, “I miss SF!” She recently moved away from the city, and I know she does miss it, so there was nothing fishy there.
I looked at the photo and gasped.
Whales dancing in the bay? I’d seen a whale in the bay before, but I’d never seen a whole pod dancing—and certainly not in sync. And now a photographer had captured the whimsy? What a day! I could almost hear bars of “And I sing to myself…what a wonderful world,” wafting through my window from the very waters where the whales were dancing.
My first instinct was to tear outside to the marina and see if the show was still happening. Could I could chase down a rogue sailor in time to set sail for the Golden Gate Bridge and catch the curtain call?
Then the logical part of my brain kicked in and I reasoned that the show was probably over if they already got photos—“Duh, Jac! Get your head in the game.” My next move was to message
who writes poems inspired by weird animal headlines on the regular. I knew she would love it, so I sent her the post and moved on with my day, humming, “What a wonderful world.”Hours later, I couldn’t stop thinking about the dancing whales, so I scrolled to look at the photos again. This time, I read to the bottom of the post, where it read…
…APRIL FOOLS, LOL.
Oh, the heartbreak, the terrible, devastating heartbreak.
I felt like Andrew in Sweet Home Alabama when he gets jilted at the alter—his handsome face falls as he sighs, “So this is what this feels like.”
So this is what this feels like.
It took me a moment to recover.
In the aftermath, I messaged Lyndsay to tell her the news. It’s nice to have a friend in times like these. As we were grieving, I added a note pondering if there was still a poem in there—something along the lines of letting ourselves be a fool for wonder.
That idea for the poem haunted me like those phantom whales, and even though I feel a wee bit foolish trying poetry myself, I gave it a go:
This glorious whale of a show.
That’s it, I think.
Although I’m now on guard for AI-generated images, I kind of love that I fell for it, because I don’t want to lose my ability to be enchanted by the world. It’s so easy to walk around with my armor up, protecting myself from the next blow, the next bad news. Because there’s always more bad news. I always want to know how we keep caring without being swallowed by hopelessness.
About a month ago, I came across this quote, and it’s haunted me too.
“Despair cannot share the same space as wonder.” - Alice Walker
Despair cannot share the same space as wonder.
That’s it, I think.
As silly and shallow and selfish as it feels to let myself play with baby goats and paint neon mushrooms and imagine whales dancing in the bay while we are on the brink of a whole buffet of disasters, what if we need those things? What if astonishment and imagination and beauty keep us from despair?
As I watched millions of people travel to watch the solar eclipse, I couldn’t help but think that we’re starving for a little bit of magic, for something bigger than ourselves, that we’re starving for God.1
Although we could watch it on our screens afterward, we still want to stand in a field with thousands of others and watch the sky go dark and feel the air grow cold and remember how small we are. We’re desperate to feel alive, that all of this means something.
And so, even when the joke’s on me, I’m trying to pay attention to any kind of wonder, smiling imagining a whale choreographer running rehearsals by Alcatraz. While this crusty old world breaks my heart time and time again—if I’m going to be here, I don’t want to miss the show.
Happy April Fools’, friends. I’d love to hear your thoughts—have you been a fool for wonder?
Comment on this post, or connect with me on Instagram: @jackieknapp_
I know we have readers from a variety of worldviews here, and I hope this is a place where all feel welcome, whatever your beliefs may be.
I love this! And I continue to be amazed and instructed by your capacity for wonder and appetite for whimsy. Love this line and want to keep thinking about this question: What if astonishment and imagination and beauty keep us from despair?