Early spring, or staring at the decomposing corpse of last year

Ah, spring. It sucks, doesn't it? All through the long winter, snow-loving people like myself have had to suffer through the incessant whining of people who are just "dying for spring to arrive."

And then it does. Beautiful, isn't it? The snow melts to reveal a slimy, ragged carpet of rotted vegetation. Sprinkled about are the decomposing corpses of raccoons, mice, cats, and any other tragedy - great or small - that had lain hidden under the snow disappeared. The ground thaws in layers microns thick, turning every sojourn off the paved path into a mud-splattered slog through half-frozen slop. Tired at looking around at the mess winter has left of the world, you look up into trees that have yet to reacquire their leaves, or even any buds. Nothing comforting there; they all look like half-buried skeletons, twisted by disease or some unknown agony.

So, are you happy now? Spring is here and it stinks - literally. Musty, rotted and moldy as always.

Face it, you warm-weather worshipers; the "spring" you claim to love with such intensity is only a small part of the bargain. You conveniently forget the repulsive post-winter reality of spring in favor of the halcyon pre-summer illusion. Autumn,by contrast, is worthy of your fawning; it is a separate season with a unique an desirable flavor. Plus, you have the pristine solitude of winter to look forward to. Spring? By the time you can look around and enjoy the warmer weather, it's very nearly the official start of summer.

One good barometer of when that small sliver of livable spring appears is the arrival of the cherry blossoms. In Sapporo, Japan, a city with a climate almost identical to that of Chicago, Illinois, the peak of the cherry blossom bloom is the second week of May. That's right; May. The spring you pine for, the spring all the poets write about, the spring that is so representative of life, is only a few weeks ahead of the summer solstice.

So play it up all you want, spring worshipers, but know this: your "season" is only a short prelude to summer, barely discernable from it. I'll welcome summer with you but please, put away the fanfare for the arrival of "spring"; Some of us still have not had time to properly mourn the passing of winter and the end of the snow.


- V.