My older daughter relays that she stopped for brand-new greasy donuts at 3 a.m. with her sister and a carful of teenagers headed to the airport. She parked beside a car with a man, she says, who must have lived through better moments.

We’re waiting for coffee on a Sunday morning jammed with people getting the Sunday vibe going. I make a vague comment about the soulful journey. Despite the eyerolling of my companion, I’m serious. Maybe the man was simply heading from home to work, or vice versa, but 3 a.m. in rural Vermont often means staring at a lonely emptiness where the way down leads to a few single dismal plot points, and the way up — imagination has plenty of material there. I don’t mean this in any jest, having hit a multitude of my own 3 a.m. moments; there’s a sizable respect between me and 3 a.m. Laughter and donuts, of course, are my preferred side of those moments.

April is the Vermont season of patience, of cold and thaw, and cold and more cold, of rain and the remembrance of November, the splendiferous muscle of crocuses. April is the long haul of spring, of faith in the green that tantalizes. Vonnegut writes, “The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one’s soul to grow.”