Let me preface this by saying that I know how cliched it is to link "spring" and "awakening". But, like all cliches, it wouldn't be cliched if there weren't some sort of truth to it.
March, in most years, is when winter finally yields to its inevitable demise. This year, in particular, those of us in the Northeast welcome this demise. After two months of weekly snowstorms and temperatures consistently below freezing, I can finally wear my fleece and not succumb to hypothermia. The rains last night and the warmer temperatures cause the melting snow to secrete patches of fog that glowed orange in the early morning sun this morning. The woods sing with the dripping from branches and finally the birds are back. No more silent mornings broken by the occasional train horn.
Like a bear, in March I wake up. I start to smell things again; to see things; to feel things. I get filled with positivity and purpose. It also doesn't hurt that my birthday is the 18th and, as I have gotten older, I have found that my birthdays signify a new year as much as January 1 or Rosh Hashanah.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Happy spring.
MSL
