March: An Appreciation

March: An Appreciation

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A delay in writing this morning gives me more time to think (a dangerous activity!). And what I’m thinking about is March, this in-between month. One day spring, the next day winter. Unsettling, to say the least. But also inevitable.

Weather, like so many other things, is never a smooth progression from one season to another. It’s a series of fits and starts, of warm southerly breezes challenged by Arctic fronts. Of rain that changes to snow and back to rain again. Of jackets in the morning and sweaters in the afternoon.

But don’t we need such “give,” such wiggle room, in our own lives? I’m thinking about how we acquire skills, how babies learn to walk or talk and how adults learn — well, almost anything, how to tap dance, for instance! Hard-won mastery one day, two left feet the next.

I’m trying to learn a lesson from March, to see in its intermittency a gracious acceptance of change and growth. Heaven knows I need it!

The Sound of Engines

The Sound of Engines

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My suburb is quiet, given its proximity to a major international airport. But when a wild wind barrels in from the west, planes are routed over the house and the sound of jet engines fills the sky. The harder the wind blows, the more planes there seem to be. Just the opposite of what one would like, of course.

Last night the airliners seemed to be using Folkstone Drive as a runway and skimming the tops of the tall oaks. The fact that I was dodging limbs and crunching over downed tree branches on the drive home only heightened this impression. I was glad to pull into the garage.

But this morning the wind still roars and the planes still circle. Winter is back, and it wants us to know it.

Free Hour

Free Hour

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A free hour, from 6-7 last evening, and the trail beckoned. The sun was low in the sky and the evening was soft and warm. Cyclists whizzed by me and my legs felt heavy and tired, so I kept to the right and warmed up slowly. 

Ten minutes in and I was flying. Well, not really. But it felt that way. It’s been such a long, cold winter. And to be dressed only in one layer, moving at my own pace down a path in the suburbs, seemed perfection to me then.

Maybe it was runner’s high or maybe it was spring fever — and it certainly had something to do with daylight savings time. But whatever it was, I was not alone.

Everyone I saw — from the ferociously helmeted bikers to the boxy guy padding along in thin sandals — seemed to feel the same way.

The Skirt

The Skirt

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Is winter really over — pants tucked in boots, thick socks, turtleneck, sweater? Can I finally think about ditching the winter uniform?

I seem to remember another article of clothing, something I wore long ago, when days were warmer.

I even have a few of them my closet, relics of another time. Is it my imagination or do they look forlorn, wrinkled with disuse, wondering why it’s been so long?

I check the weather. Highs in the 60s, though it’s cool now. Still, it’s do-able — if I still own a pair of tights anymore, that is.

Only one way to find out.  I’m heading upstairs now to put on a skirt.


(Not this one; it’s a dress, anyway!)

West Wind

West Wind

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Any walker will tell you which way the wind blows. Whether it roars in from the west or brushes up from the south, all soft and warm. 

Often it makes the difference: How long I walk or how far.

On a route I’m getting to know here in Lexington, the west wind smacks me in the face every time I turn a corner. I know my directions here, so that helps. But I think I would know the west wind anywhere. It is not timid or subtle. It takes my breath away.

But oh, the joy of having it at my back. It pushes me all the way home.

Jump on the Day

Jump on the Day

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For the owls among us — heck, for most people — tonight’s time change is reason to cheer. In come the long, languorous evenings of spring and summer. In come barbecues, alfresco dining, after-dinner strolls and cricket-addled evenings. Not yet, of course, but we’re finally moving in that direction.

For the early-risers among us, though, the time change means a return to dark mornings.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m so conditioned to predawn rising that morning light on a weekday makes me nervous. Have I overslept? What have I missed?

Waking in darkness is the ultimate jump on the morning. It’s being up before it’s day. And starting Monday, I’ll have it again.

50 Words

50 Words

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If Eskimos have 50 words for snow, then we tired, winter-weary suburbanites have 50 words for the  substances that keep us going through the snow.

There is snow melt and grit and cinders and kitty litter and rock salt (although that may not be around anymore for environmental reasons). The other day I heard a radio announcer suggest table salt. Sometimes there is just a residue of salt, but seeing it convinces me there’s no black ice and it’s safe to traverse that patch of sidewalk.

Above all, of course, there are the tractors that spread this stuff.

They may not be pretty, but they are our heroes.

Sleep Week

Sleep Week

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It is with no irony — only earnest good intentions — that the National Sleep Foundation has set aside this week, March 2-9, as National Sleep Awareness Week.

The irony, for me, comes from the fact that this coming Sunday we “spring forward” into daylight savings time, losing a crucial nighttime hour. It’s a lost hour I notice mightily, since I live on the edge of sleep stability.

But no, the professionals say, this is exactly when you should be doubling down on best bedtime practices — sticking to a sleep-wake routine, exercising daily, avoiding naps, creating a cool, dark, comfortable sleep environment.

What happens when you do all these things and still wake up at 4 a.m.? It’s hard to find much on the National Sleep Foundation website about that. But I have some ideas.

Reading, writing — even blogging, perhaps?  There are worse things.

Season of Growth

Season of Growth

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Lent is late this year. Like spring, it is taking its time. But today is Ash Wednesday, so the 40 days have begun, the ecclesiastical season that prepares us for Easter with prayer, fasting and contemplation.

Somewhere along the way — it’s been a few years ago now — I learned that “Lent” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “lencten,” meaning spring. The days are lengthening. It’s harder to appreciate this when Ash Wednesday falls on February 13, as it did last year.

But this year it arrives on March 5. It’s light outside as I type these words. And I decide to approach the season with less dread and more optimism. A bit more like Advent. As a moving toward rather than a dredging down. As a season of growth rather than self-denial.

Best Picture

Best Picture

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Academy members look not as much for “feel-good” movies, critic Ann Hornaday wrote in a recent Washington Post article — but for “feel-deeply” movies. These are the films that become “Best Picture.”

Not always, but sometimes. This year, yes.

I had seen almost all  the nominated films by the time I made my way to “12 Years.” I’d hesitated at first, heard it was hard to watch — and it was. But when the film ended and I walked, half-dazed, out of the theater that cold gray Saturday, I felt emptied and re-filled. It was the kind of movie experience you have once or twice a year, if you’re lucky.

It was a reminder that nothing beats superb acting and straight story-telling, building to a powerful conclusion. It was a true catharsis – for the main character and for the movie-goers who took the journey with him.

(Taken last year at one of the great old theaters.)