On March

One of these years I’m going to love March.

March is a wretched time. It’s sad to say but we must say: yes it is.

I don’t want it to be. I don’t. I want March to be the beginning of spring. I want to open the windows and breathe in the soggy air as the sun sets. I want to wear a light jacket. I want to have a drink outside and be a little cold but happy about it nonetheless. I want to have the first picnics in a long time. I want it be fall-ish but different. I want to feel the happiness that always comes at the very beginning of things. I want March to be the start of something new.

I suppose it is somewhere. Maybe South Carolina or Arizona or Greece. But it’s not where I am. Here it is still terrible winter. The snow is four feet deep on the front lawn. The sky is gray. It’s snowing right now. My feet are cold. My shoes are wet. The color of the sky is like that of a fluorescent bulb that makes everything look worse. I don’t know when it will end. I don’t smell flowers, I don’t see grass, I don’t feel the dampness in the woods before and after the snow.

We say that hard winters make you hard. Okay. I’m sick of being hard. I’m sick of trying to get energized by the fact that life is so bad here for so long every year. The hit of feeling hardier than everyone else hits pretty strong in December, but it’s wearing off quickly, and I’m thinking I would be okay being a weakling down south, freezing in 52 degrees Fahrenheit.