Spring coming to Maryland feels different than the desert. Those little hints pop up out of nowhere—behind fog, among days of rain, amid frost and sleet, as if to say “this will get better” and “you will be warm again” and “you will live again” and “the world is waking up.”
No matter how old I get, those little warm spells, those little teasers, immediately take my imagination to long summer days and hot summer nights and bonfires and swimming and new friends and long hikes and picnics and, well, all the stuff we live for.
I had not felt that particular brand of Maryland spring fever since 2019.
The feeling of spring in the body.
It is like falling in love, I tell you.
Those little teasers get you high.
I was driving the other week—one of those freakishly warm nights, I think a Friday and just before my dad died and the season of grief set in—driving with the windows down and feeling that nostalgia combined with anticipation. The quality of the air. The balminess.
I had not felt that East-Coast spring air and all its associations during my years in the desert, because weather is simply different there. And so the stirrings of spring in Northern New Mexico held no associations for me. A guy I know swears he can tell when he’s in the Baltimore/D.C. region by the smell of the air on the highways, and he gets that same feeling—nostalgia, home, excitement, longing. Like it electrifies you awake and out of the gray of winter.
In the desert, the weather shifts from bitter cold and snow to “wind season” to one day noticing you can wear a T-shirt outside again, and then you are firmly planted in spring. The transitions are gradual. There are no teasers. Not really. Just T-shirts and then, a month or two later, swimming … and that high desert sun that seeps into your skin like god itself.
Maryland weather is predictable for planning your week but unpredictable week to week. It could snow still this month.
“Why am I suddenly in a good mood today?” I found myself wondering the other week. “Why is everyone in a good mood?” This time of year in Maryland, the answer is always “the weather.” It does something to us.
I’ve been taking daily walks here—ritualistically, therapeutically—and in late February stumbled upon flowers in full bloom. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The next week, a whole field of small wildflowers with patches of purple dead nettle and dandelions.
Today, it was 64 degrees. Sundays are my busiest day-job days, but I needed that warmth and sunshine; editing could wait. I took an extended lunch break from the newsroom and ventured into downtown Frederick to see new art, check out some library books, and try to find somewhere that still sells the New York Times (what I wouldn’t give to read a Sunday NYT again [that mission failed]). I might be editing into the night tonight, but at least I embraced this primal knowing that I am nature, and the natural world is smiling today and blooming, and I needed to be a part of that, if only for a couple hours.
Happy Daylight Saving Time to you! (Unless you live in Arizona, in which case, Happy Switching-to-Pacific-Time!)
***Sunday, March 10 … DST begins + there’s a Pisces new moon ;)
✦ If anyone can identify the above flowers, thank you.
✦ People’s kindness changes the world.
✦ Highly recommend “Poor Things.” Excellent. Do not recommend “Drive-Away Dolls” (felt more like a first draft) or “One Love” (did any other Bob Marley fans struggle to embrace Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley?).
✦ My library card expiration date: 04/12/2049 (good to know?)
✦ “This grief is a river and cannot be pushed and cannot be fjorded with ease” —Aralee Strange
✦ “How do you know you’re on your path? Because it disappears. How do you know that you’re really doing something radical? Because you can’t see where you’re going. You are going to enter the black, contemplative splendors of self-doubt. … You need to know how you know where you are. Poetry shows how incredibly precise it is in there. It was a story that would be told to a young boy or girl that would ask the question, ‘What do I do when I’m lost in the forest?’ Here’s the answer that the elder gives. The elder says, ‘Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.’” —David Whyte, poem by David Wagoner
✦ A friend gave me a new name in a dream—True West Forth—and it has so many layers of meaning (I love the subconscious mind)
✦ Whenever you are bogged down and getting bummed out about illness of any sort that has gone on too long (in your opinion), here is a mantra: YOUR BODY ALLOWS YOU TO BE HERE
✦ If you want to get lost for seven minutes:
Do you experience some form of spring fever?
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