Perspectives

March was hard for me the first couple of years after I moved to Minnesota. In Washington, D.C., where I had lived before, by the end of March it is firmly Spring, with the cherry blossoms blooming and all. In Minnesota, March is not what I would have called the beginning of Spring. Sure, it is no longer subzero. Sure, the snow has started to melt. Sure, we see liquid precipitation for the first time in *months*. However, 45 and rainy wasn't Spring to me. In D.C., that would be called "winter." I love living in Minnesota, but March was hard.

It is funny how one acclimates. This year I realized that it has been several years since I thought of March in that way. March *is* the beginning of Spring here--the beginning of Spring just means something different than being able to go outside in a light jacket. It means that the harshest part of winter is over, that the snow has started to melt, and that the temperatures are no longer subzero. The promise of the long, lovely actual Spring and the mellow Upper-Midwestern summer is there*. The days are getting lighter and lighter. The promise of easier weather is still there, and that is what Spring is about, here.

Even today, when it is wet and 45 degrees.

*Everyone who has not lived in a place like D.C. in the summer who lives in Minnesota can shut up right now about how "hot" the summers here get. They are just lovely, and not generally very hot or humid at all. The days are pleasingly warm, and the evening are pleasingly cool. And the other people who agree with me but wish for "real" summers? You are insane. I bet you have mostly encountered "real" heat in places that don't get very humid.