It’s Springing!

It was warm today, people. Okay, maybe not going-out-with-no-sleeves warm (it was windy, after all), but warmer than it’s been in a looong while.
Actually, winter didn’t seem so long this year. I was dreading a winter like last years’, which had built up the season as something not unlike torture in my mind. But this year? Just… not as bad, somehow. I keep thinking that it can’t possibly be the middle of March; spring can’t be on its way, because I haven’t been properly beaten down by winter yet. I mean — not that I’m complaining, or anything.
Today, I went for a run outside. I took the cats out for a stroll in the back yard. I put a blanket on my living room floor and laid in the sun there while I read submissions (and I had a mini floor-picnic when I ate my afternoon snack). I had the windows open, and I remembered that there are SOUNDS other than the furnace coming on. I think that was the biggest surprise — hearing the windchimes in my backyard and birds and everything else, and realizing that those sounds are just THERE all summer long.
I feel reconnected with everything, really. When it’s warm out, my world extends from the rooms of my house to the yard around me, down the street, along the bike paths — it’s incredible. My thoughts have been turning more and more to gardening lately, without any effort from me; it’s an instinct now.
I opened the door to my bedroom this afternoon, and I thought, ‘Hey, it even smells like summer in here!’ It took me a while to realize why that was, but then I did — I’d brought the outdoors in with me from my run and threw it in the laundry basket. It’s not the smell of sweat, but it’s something like that — the way a body smells after working outdoors. Fresh air, and a little bit of dirt.
I’m not so foolish as to think we’ve seen the last of freezing temperature — or snow, even. I mean, maybe. But maybe not. This is Minnesota, after all. But I still can’t help feeling like hey! Wow! Spring already!