Listen to me.  Listen to me all you people at home in Maine who are still, STILL, staring down the mounds of snow in the corners of your homes and wishing to all things related to god that it would be spring already.

Are you listening?

Spring exists on time in other places!  Places as close as our nation’s capitol!

I know.  I KNOW.  You already knew that.  And I knew it, too. Only, did I?  Did I really? Did I know it the way I know that when the sun sets it will rise again?

No, I did not.  Not lately, I didn’t.

The ways things go with me is this:  the sun warms my skin, the breeze doesn’t hurt to breathe and still, STILL, I doubt.  Then, 24 hours later, I start to recognize that in fact, things are blooming, things are purple.  They are purple, people.  They are not crocus purple, like maybe-possibly-if-things-feel-right-I’ll-take-a-peek-outside purple, they are brazen purple — like Prince.  I’m talking PUR. PLE.  Wisteria.  Azalea.  Tulips.  They are purple, they are yellow, they are green and they are glorious.

It is spring.  It is spring in DC, and I am witnessing the beauty and awe of it.  I had forgotten.  Forgive me, but I had just forgotten.

I had recently committed to not complaining about winter, in those April 20 degree days, but now I compose myself and I smooth the lapels of my 3-piece suit and I say off with your proverbial head, winter.  Off with it!

Please.  Remind me why I live in Maine again?