You can call me flower if you want to

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine texted to see if I had been living, teaching, and going to class underground, since he hadn’t seen me for several weeks. In jest, I responded that I had, and that I had also forgotten the taste of bread.

Cheesy Lord of the Rings references aside (points to anyone who got that before the aside. Nerd points.), it turns out that through this long New England winter, I had forgotten something. Sometime late last month, on one of the first days the temperature climbed above 45 degrees, and the sun was out, melting the piles of driven snow that are littered with a winter’s worth of fast food wrappers and—inexplicably—empty oil cans, I woke up to the sound of birds. Birds.

I can’t remember the last time I woke up to birds chirping. But there they were, making noise outside my window. After so many months, despite the persistent lack of leaves on the trees (I want to punch all the Northwesterners complaining about their “long” winter and grey weather—at least they’ve seen grass and green in the past six months…), spring is here and it feels fresh and new and exciting, which is—I suppose—exactly the point of spring.

And today, it is warm out. Really warm. Almost seventy degrees. And even though it is raining, and even though it is grey, I am wearing a sundress and it feels weird and good to have a breeze around my bare legs. And it hardly even matters that I look like a kindergartner in my dress and rain boots. My feet are dry and I am happy.