Spring fever

Before I begin, I posted something in last week's blog, since deleted, which caused some hard feelings for 2 good friends of mine. In short...they were right. I was wrong. Apologies already made and accepted. I wrote like the very jerks I was writing about. Education through irony.

Now, on to one of my favorite obsessions...the weather. Today begins the last full week of winter. Other than 2011, when we had another brutal winter, this is the first time I've counted the days until spring. I'm trying to break up the remainder of winter into smaller pieces much like a prisoner breaks up the remaining time until he's freed.  11 days. 264 hours. 15,840 minutes. 950,400 seconds. (give or take) And yeah, I know we can still get some nasty weather in the first 3-4 weeks of spring. But that doesn't affect me the same way. It's like the psychopath making his last attack before he finally dies. You know he'll be dead before long.
It wasn't until this weekend that I realized something. In past winters, we've always had little tastes of spring. The January thaw, occasional temperature spikes, etc. We haven't had a single one this winter. Not one. We also haven't had any bitter cold days, but those never bother me. It's been a relatively narrow temperature range since November. Not surprisingly, we've had, it seems, more overcast days this season than I can remember.
And, not surprisingly, it's been the most depressing winter in my memory. If not for GWCTRA, I may be residing in one of our state's many fine residences for those with mental illnesses.
Which is why this past weekend has me on something of a high. All weekend, I've felt like Mr. Rogers on nitrous oxide.
And I'm picking up the same thing in others. Yesterday and today...blue skies, and highs in the low 50's. We walked along the beach. Everyone was smiling. Kids skimming stones and throwing very slushy snowballs. (None directed at me, I think) Older couples walking hand in hand with a grace that, I suspect, I wouldn't have seen just a week ago, when we were hit with yet another freak storm. This one like a drunken guest that wouldn't leave the house. It staggered, spun, went in reverse, did the meteorological moves of an Olympic gold medal gymnast. All it needed was a horse and parallel bars.
I don't know what, if any, research has been done on spring fever. Maybe it's not a fever. Maybe nothing really happens to the body. But for me, it's almost intoxicating.
I went to school undergraduate in a little town called Plattsburgh, NY. 17 miles south of the border, tucked just north of the Adirondack Mountains, and on Lake Champlain. Beautiful area. Bitter cold in the winter. We hit -24F (without wind chill) on 2 occasions. We'd spend the last 2-3 weeks of the semester alternately studying for finals and finding some tire tubes, tying them together, and heading into the Saranac River, taking it a bit short of its mouth at the lake. We'd dock at Filion's, one of our local watering holes.
I have many fond memories of school, with this one on my short list of favorite things to do.
As a kid, I had similar feelings. Just this sense of connection with something greater, based on living in an area with 4 distinct seasons.
Not only that, baseball is less than 3 weeks away. All the cliches we associate with the beginning of spring.
I feel like a survivor of sorts. Along with my fellow northeasterners. There's been no shortage of real tragedy and misery here. Sandy, the December shootings, the February blizzard. It's been something of a nightmare. And one that has only tangentially affected me, at least in comparison to so many others. So, perhaps for those of us incredibly lucky enough not to have lost anything, the greater the adversity, the greater the sense of joy.

Ah, I can smell the baseball leather. I can hear the snow melting, like the Wicked Witch. I can see the smiles coming back. Hello spring.

Thanks for reading...gp