It's been abnormally cold here; mere thirties and forties on the scale, which can send folks into tizzies when they travel from the Northeast on vacation to escape the cold.
However, I've welcomed the reprieve from typical seasonal weather. Of course, I've had a fair share of complaints escape my lips. My hands have become dry and cracked, and my lips are in the same decline. My nose runs all hours of the night and, to counteract its running, I've begun sleeping on my back. This means my mouth hangs open as I snore my dreams away. And then, of course, there is the bit about swinging open my front door to a sudden faceful of boasting windchill. And, oh yes, the layers that are required just to take the dear puppy out at a brisk 3:30 a.m.
But truth be told, I have welcomed this weather.
And yet,
In the car today, Charleston's weather was a different story.
Today is the first sunny day for a few now, with the rain singing down on our little city for just a bit too long. But today, the sun laughed through cracks in my bedroom blinds, and all-out guffawed when I opened the front door. Smokey Robinson noticed it, too. He looked at me before crouching to pee as if to ask, "Can we stay out and play?" Of course, I obliged.
After running around the circular driveway for three and a half times, I scooped little Smokey up and decided to take him with me for some errands.
Thus began my drive along water-logged roads and down muddied childhood memories of springtime.
The beauties of spring are the nuances of it; the mud, the excess of water, the buds that never open, the birds that warble off-key. It's the sun that shines almost too brightly, the sky that rests into that certain shade of blue, the rich colors that emerge, and the smell of it. There is that smell of spring. It is pure earth, that smell, and it reminds me of how fertile and rich a place we live. That smell is, I know, the reason for the budding, the catalyst for the Jasmine's perfume. It is heavy with moisture. It is laden with dirt, and grit, and grime. It is divine.
And today, there were small flirtations of it after I drove by supermarkets, chain restaurants, and gas stations. The smell subtly came and went through my open window. It was as if it meant to beckon me back to childhood, meant to remind me about what it means to spend time outside in the spring.
Don't forget what it's like to find a spider web in the dew, it told me.
Remember to look at the mud when you walk by it.
Breathe through your nose, it said.
Remember that life's seasons continue.
And I breathed, and I knew what it was to re-new.
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