Spring Fever

As April is wrapping up – I’m not sure how, as it seems to have only just begun – one part of life in New York that I’ve come to appreciate considerably better here than I did in California is the relief that comes with Spring.

Winter is brutal, there is no doubt about that. Temperatures dive, almost as quickly as Donald Trump’s credibility, to just above absolute zero and hover there for a few months. Snow storms batter the city for days on end, making air travel all but impossible, delaying subway service and forcing the sanitation department to suspend trash pickup. Uncharacteristic for New Yorkers, the city sometimes very nearly grounds to a halt. When the temperature eventually does peek up above freezing, the snow becomes rain (which, when the temperatures inevitably drop again, freeze on the sides of buildings and then, with the help of a little burst of wind, break loose and plummet to the ground, impaling bystanders shuffling to work below. It’s a nifty little peril that I had never known existed before moving here).

Thankfully, winter does pass. Many a New Yorker has told me that Spring is not taken for granted here. Spring is earned. Though they never describe what we did to have it taken away from us in the first place and why we must earn it back every year. Perhaps god is angry that Broadway’s Spider-Man has once again been delayed (but for chrissakes, the title is “Turn off the Dark”! How did we not see these problems coming?). Or perhaps – and this is just a hunch of mine – it’s the result of siting the largest city in the country in the fickle-weathered Northeast.

But the seasons change. Spring has not yet begun in earnest, but already I can feel the difference. At first, there’s a silence, as though nature must take a moment to fully comprehend the violence she just endured. The clouds clear, and sunshine, somehow more golden than anything I’ve seen before, blankets the city that was only one or two months ago hidden beneath undulating white snowdrifts. Trees, finally regrowing their leaves, sway in the breeze. The birds come out, and their singing fills that silence. Soon, the crickets join, too. Bees buzz from one freshly bloomed flower to the next. Dogs bark, and children step outside to play. Neighborhood parks begin to fill and swingsets, having sat unused since November, creak happily as they vault back to life. Boomboxes blare. There’s laughter, screaming, mindless chatter: it’s a cacophony, a symphony dedicated to the relief and good cheer that the onset of spring has finally brought into the Big Apple.

It’s really quite marvelous. This is a season that I’ve earned, indeed.

...until my allergies begin.