This Funny Spring Thing

What’s an eco-gal to do when mid-March offers up the most delightful May-like weather? I mean really, earlier this week was the most perfect kind of weather – perfect temperature to shed your sleeves, perfect sun kissing you but not burning, perfect hint of breeze… what’s not to like? Even today’s grey morning is creeping into the low 70’s.

But here we are. Several people have said to me, “This is the good side of global warming!” and I don’t know what to do with that statement. While I tend to see the glass-half-full and strive to always find a silver lining, it’s disconcerting to glibly enjoy climate change. Climate change is already causing increasing problems for human communities around the world, to say nothing of its impact on animals and plants. Whether this week’s weather was just a little heat wave or part of a larger climate trend, it’s distinctly uncomfortable to respond to it with pure delight.

I keep wrestling with the sense that this is not right. It’s March! Shouldn’t we be a little bit wishing and wondering if we’ll get one more snowstorm? In our part of the world our instinctual selves have come to expect a certain amount of cold and darkness. Although modern society tries to keep marching on, the winter months offer the opportunity to go inward, stay home, and rest deeply. Nature offers a thousand metaphors for the cycle of rest followed by action: the hibernating bear, the buried daffodil bulb, every plant that sheds its leaves and grows them again. It serves us well to allow winter to slow us down. 

But again, here we are, May in March. I could get on a soapbox and condemn this weather as a sign of the end times; I could become fearful and find doom in every ray of sunshine. Or I can accept it as beautiful and a gift, like every day and every breath. I can stretch my winterish inner quiet for a few more weeks and begin to lighten my diet with the cleansing greens of early spring. I can continue with all the things I do to care for Earth, trusting that they make some small difference. And I will soak in every bit of this warm but not hot, check every evening for early asparagus shoots, and wonder gratefully at the adaptability of our Earth.