I love Spring, and even as I start downing Zyrtec and Claritin like they’re the latest street drug craze I still remain optimistic for the trumpet sound from Mother Nature that warmer temperatures are on the horizon. Indeed I grow giddy, and I flit around in excitement similar to the twitterpated birds I see flying past my open window.
As my weather app tells me of the pleasantly rising degrees and rays of beautiful sunshine second their emotion with beams burning brightly through my undrawn shades I pull out my wrinkly Capri pants and observe my un-manicured toes with mild disdain.
Even my kids catch the Spring Fever, and I watch in amusement as they dig for last season’s suit while hollering, “hey Mom, can we go swim?”
We all run outside in sheer abandon, shedding our socks along the way, and one of the many joys running through my fatigued, post-winter mommy brain is does this mean flu season can go away now?!
Warm air swims around my restful body, I feel the slightest breath of wind across my face, and as I lower my sunglasses to watch my children picking me bouquets of Spring flowers a tranquil peace surrounds me. They’re running off all that pent-up, Winter cabin fever, I think satisfied, and although my tan is seriously lacking I work my Momma shorts like nobody’s business.
Ahhh, Spring has finally come, I think. I eagerly purchase sleeveless Easter dresses and go about the grueling business of changing out children’s seasonal wardrobes. I get the taste within me for a good grilled burger, and when I stop and sniff the air I can already taste that charcoal goodness on my anticipatory tongue.
But somehow in my excitement for new beginnings and a longing for Summer I always forget a small fact about Spring in Mississippi. Every year it gets me, and somehow it always catches me unaware as if I wasn’t a Southerner at all. It’s bound to happen though, each and every year. For sure enough one day, after a week of basking in the seventy degree sunshine, I will walk outside excitedly, and immediately (and sadly unexpectedly) slip on a piece of ice that appeared on my driveway overnight.
Mississippi in Spring is kind of like my hormones after I had my second child: completely unreliable, slightly bipolar, and most definitely erratic. It’s like one minute we’re all warm and welcoming, but then without notice and completely without warning we rip the flowered welcome mat out from under your flip-flop clad feet and greet you with a bitterly cold demeanor. You might even dread the moment you let your guard down with eager anticipation for our warm arms to embrace you because the sudden and frigid presentation make us seem even colder than we ever were before.
Spring in Mississippi is kind of like that, and even though it seems I would have a kinship with such an erratic weather-patterned region I still forget the split personality that is the beginning of Spring down South.
And as I shut my windows and turn on the heat, pulling out cardigans to place on the children, I try to remember that I should enjoy this last spell of cold weather. After all we all know it will be pushing ninety degrees come this time next week.
So there you have it; Spring in Mississippi, and I always enjoy all five minutes that this supposed season lasts. Don’t you?
meltedflowers amy garren says
Hahahahhahahahahaha. Yup!