Almost Summer – Not!

Among my friends is a couple who have been my friends since before I was a mother, when I was young and thought I knew so much, when I could be very very definite in my opinions because my world was more black and white than it is now. Before I discovered how little I really know and my world became many shades of gray. But I digress. We email nearly every day, and in those emails we generally set a subject line that remains the subject line for the duration of that month. In the beginning, the subject would be the name of the month, but this strange winter has brought out a bit of our strangeness and so our most recent subject line was “almost summer”. Until this morning.

When I changed it. Because it is obviously not almost summer in my part of the world. My friends live in upstate New York, where they have had almost summer weather already. But our subject line needs to be more fairly representative for both of us. Although my change to “April Flowers – Not Yet” (or close to that) is probably not representative either, because they have April flowers. We have green sprouts struggling to find their way through the debris that didn’t get cleaned up last fall.

I told my friend that perhaps my problem is that my definition of spring differs from the reality of spring in our part of the world. My definition of spring includes warmth (but not too warm), plentiful sunshine (but not too hot), perhaps a little breeze freshening the air, birds singing and beginning their nest-building and the pleasure of sitting on the deck with my evening glass of wine. The reality of spring in my part of the world is exactly what we are getting: wind, cool (sometimes cold) temperatures, weather that changes from windy with rain to windy with snow to just windy and clouds to windy but blue skies with sunshine back to windy with snow as the day progresses. No brightly colored blooms or birds beginning their nest-building for at least a couple more weeks and maybe longer. In my part of the world spring often does not arrive until mid-May, sometimes June. We have been known to have snow showers on July 4th.

What I need is an attitude adjustment. A more practical and realistic set of expectations. An appreciation for those days that are springlike, as yesterday was, when the girl dogs and I went for a short walk. Short, because we’ve been lying fallow over the winter and need to build up our endurance slowly by slowly.

Last week we had white rain. Frozen rain. March was busy leaving as it arrived, like a lion. That’s not what I was taught, you know – I was taught that if March came in like a lion, it would depart like a lamb. Fairy tales, that’s what I was taught. It seems there’s more reality to Goldilocks and the Three Bears than there is to the March lamb/lion theory. It’s very difficult to acknowledge that those things I was taught when I was young may not be true. Sort of like learning that Santa Claus is not real.

Digressing from spring and the weather, but continuing with the complicated topic of reality, I rarely pay attention to commercials when I watch TV. However, there is one, a car commercial, that seems to catch my attention. I cannot tell you what car they’re trying to sell so I think it isn’t doing its job, but I can tell you it starts out with the image of a scantily clad woman, a woman who is all boobs and legs holding a starting flag which she waves – to signify the beginning of the one-car race I guess. My question is this: is reality that men will buy that car because the commercial shows this all boob/legs woman? I’m quite certain that ad will not draw women to the salesroom.

Then there’s shows like The Survivors, because reality is we all go live on islands where we have to hunt or pick our food and plot to outwit the other inhabitants of the island because we cannot work together, we must display the all-too human quality of picking sides and creating tribes. If my description is less than accurate, it’s because I don’t watch the show. But I have seen the commercials. With which statement, I reduce the validity of my comment that I don’t watch commercials. Although I did say “rarely”, so that gives me a bit of leeway.

The pending release of Titanic (the movie) in 3-D has, of course, meant many showings of trailers for the movie. Which remind me that, although I did like the movie, I had problems with the reality of Kate Winslet and the oh-so young Leonardo DiCaprio as a couple. Leonardo, with his still baby face looks and Kate, very attractive but so much more mature looking than Leonardo, just didn’t seem to work for me. Didn’t seem real.

All of this to say that we haven’t found spring yet, although the forecast for next week looks promising, and that I must adjust my sense of reality. But, while I wait for that adjustment to take effect, I think I’ll go see if I can find spring. It might just be around the corner.