Quiet Storm

The latest storm, which is a shy-seeming one, tiptoed into our area yesterday, disheveling trees with noncommittal puffs of wind.  It has a bit of an ambivalent approach to stormhood; I suspect it will disappear as quietly as it has come, probably after it has a chance to sit, rest and ponder the unknowable reach of the universe for a while.  More of a wet sneeze than a rain has moistened the ground and splashed cars and streets.

Even so, the air is cool outside and requires that you layer your clothing.

March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb is the old saying.  I'm not sure I've ever fully embraced that idea.  March comes in like a very confused person wearing a raincoat that's buttoned wrong and socks that don't match.  You know the kind of person:  "I can't find my glasses.  I put them down and now they're gone."  Tossing heaps of magazines aside and looking in the most unlikely places, where they've never put their glasses ever before.  There's no logic, no rhyme, no reason.  Then, suddenly they're beaming with happiness and relief, discovering they'd had the glasses in their hand the whole time.  March does that; it ends up feeling satisfied and relieved but still a little rumpled, waiting for April to come 'round.

Since the winter solstice, the days have been getting longer and the nights shorter than they were back then.  I noticed this morning that there was more light when I got up.  You don't notice that every day; the change feels to have arrived in a chunk of difference, but really it has happened every day, two minutes at a time.

My favorite flowers, daffodils, are blooming, waving, tossing their heads coquettishly.  I used to think they might jump up and sing like the Munchkins in Oz, but if they do, it's with tiny voices I might have mistaken for something else all this time.  My sweet potato vines are swinging low, singing high.

The quiet storm, uncertain of its intentions, is keeping very few groovers inside.  With light jackets and umbrellas at the ready, they are out walking and bustling around town, the middling weather hardly a challenge for those who have withstood flying tree limbs, drenching downpours and the gargling cries of windblown seagulls for the last few months.  No sir, we all know spring is right around the corner, and no milquetoast storm like this one is going to keep this good town down.