Spring

At 5:37 a.m. today, with the sun directly above the equator and the day divided into equal hours of light and dark, spring came to 2021. In my experience, spring means, first and foremost, increased sneezing. Beyond the sneezing, spring suggests mild temperatures, rain, pretty plants and flowers, and doing things outdoors more than in winter. Before the climate got so hopelessly distorted, spring was a serious season that lasted a determinate amount of time and had it own appropriate attire. (Remember spring coats?) Nowadays, sadly, spring sometimes quickly comes and goes, as winter winds down into summer. Very cold days are soon succeeded by very hot days with only a modest interval in between, the interval we have historically experienced as spring.

This year, spring signifies something special. The milder weather that invites one to venture outdoors parallels the milder societal environment of diminishing anxiety as more and more of us are vaccinated and more and more restrictions and pandemic precautions gradually lapse. In point of fact, of course, it is still quite cold out - and we are all (or almost all) still wearing our masks. The change in our behavior as the pandemic crisis wanes will have to be gradual - as gradual as the change in the weather once was. Meanwhile, we seem caught between two extremes - those wedded to a forever winter in which the maximum precautions continue indefinitely as our new normal and those insisting on an early summer ready to shed all restraints and precautions right way. Myself, I am standing somewhere in the spring-like middle. I wear my mask faithfully. I am okay with riding the bus (where masks are mandatory), but I am still scared to go to a restaurant. (conveniently the latter is both less necessary and much more expensive than the former!)