Stolen Spring

I went for a run the other day in a world that was melting. The little creek along my path was swollen, the current raced along side me. I dodged deep puddles in the asphalt that just yesterday were ice. By halfway through I'd removed half of my clothes. Long sleeved shirts bounced around my waist like a ruffled skirt. The air was like a kiss on my skin and I have to tell you, I was ready to kiss it right back. The patchy snow on the grass was thick with wet and birds shook their feathers in the soggy pools. It was delightful.

While I brushed my teeth that morning I heard Charlie the Hawk shrieking in the field across the street. I love that Charlie the Hawk. He lives in a very tall tree in front of a little blue house down the way. I named him Charlie our very first summer here when we ate hamburgers on the grill for every meal, spread out on the grass with sun-warmed blankets watching the ladybugs on the Hawthorne tree, and Charlie always out on the prowl over the fields from above as we ate, shrieking his hellos to us as we shared the evening. It is not time for Charlie yet but he doesn't know that. To Charlie it is perhaps the first of May, opening day of Mouse season! I wanted to pop my head outside to shush him, to tell him it was all just a silly trick. This isn't really Spring, my dear. Not for a few more months! But far be it from me to deny a silly little hawk the delirious joy of a stolen Spring day, after all. So I rinsed and dried and grinned like a fool as I drove to the market with the windows rolled down, instead.

A stolen Spring day has a way of confounding even the most stalwart among us. Have you ever stepped outside in the dead of winter only to find that it is near fifty out? And then what? At first it is very confusing. The air is a soft caresses where once a bitter slap and one loses all train of thought to the pleasure. Next comes elation. Pure giddiness. I start to feel that I have stolen something grand and secretive. It is as Priscilla said to Anne Shirley, "Isn't it jolly when you discard furs and winter garments for the first time and sally forth, like this, in Spring attire?"

A stolen Spring day is to be cherished with full gusto, I have always said. On a stolen Spring day you can behave as though you have absolutely no responsibilities. And who is to stop you? A stolen Spring is what a Winter lives for, of course. Winter is a cheeky gal. I have always thought so.

Inevitably the cold will return, that is what makes it so delicious. It really is January after all, and heavy coats are meant to remain your dearest friends a while longer. It is not really Spring.

It is nice just the same.