Shh! Listen – I think those are bagpipers headed our way. Talk about music to our ears!
Somehow turning that page on the calendar, that one simple and magical gesture that makes February for the year go away for good, always feels like cause for celebration.
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Sure, much of what transpires in March is out of our control. It will go on for about two years, far longer than seems necessary for its three-day edge over the month just past. It will bring far more lion-like weather than we deserve, serving up the lamb in cruel, tease-sized portions. There’s not much – OK, nothing – we can do about that. But it will bring hope. That’s its job.
Having just bidden gleeful farewell to one of the coldest Februarys ever, I dare say more than a few of us are nonetheless walking around with undiagnosed cases of lingering seasonal affective disorder. Hey, it’s still pretty darn chilly. We’re fed up with pulling on three sweaters and two pairs of bulky socks when we slip out from under the covers every morning, tired of waiting for the poor salt-coated car to warm up before we can go anywhere, longing for a walk with the dog that doesn’t require treading across treacherous ice, weary of looking out over a backyard that we could swear once had some green to it, though we can’t quite remember back that far. Enough already! Too bad we can’t do much about it.
So it’s a joyful thing that signs of spring abound at the moment anyway. The yearly St. Patrick’s Day parades in Naperville that tell us so are just around the corner. The weather might even cooperate this time.
The Park District has begun signing people up for garden plots. Sure, it will be an agonizing few weeks before it’s a good idea to start poking in the dirt, but we can flip through those seed catalogs with justifiable hope in our hearts.
And those campaign signs seemingly multiplying everywhere like rabbits, a sure sign that silly season is in full swing, tell us spring really is headed our way, and soon.
We can choose, of course, how we respond to our environment. The snarly part sometimes is knowing whether it’s worth the energy. Some things we can’t change, with any amount of teeth-gnashing or fist-shaking, and those circumstances aren’t always obvious.
Motorists who wind up in traffic jams sometimes can’t help but get worked up over it. There’s really nothing we can do, once we’re sitting in a parking lot that happens to be located on a major arterial, but can be mighty irritating all the same. And we know walking around with a dark cloud over our heads because the weather forecaster got it wrong and our outdoor party had to head inside is wasted effort, but we do it anyway. Some things we can affect; others, not a chance – but humans are, well, human.
So let’s try to make sound decisions about taking along an umbrella or a jacket when we head out to watch one of those parades. There will be an element of the uncontrollable in the lineup.
And certainly let’s equip ourselves with as much knowledge as possible about the dozens of local people who want to serve on the boards and councils who will decide how our hard-earned tax dollars are spent. That’s a thing we can control, thanks to a little thing we call democracy.
But let’s not succumb to the folly of thinking spring will stick around this month, nor that we can do a darn thing about it.
Maybe we just have to learn to dance in the freezing rain.
Twitter @scarlman