The Often Hurried Hello

While driving under a blue sky with the windows open today I couldn't help but feel the spring of spring. In one of those moments not unlike when you're in the midst of dropping a valuable (or a bowl of macaroni for that matter) and you can only hope it lands unscathed and upright, I had about twenty sentences whiz through my head before any of the words made any sense along my drive. I thought: I wonder what kind of places have weather like this all the time. I wonder if those places naturally have winters and extreme heat sometimes. California's pretty nice all the time. Arizona's pretty nice all the time. Northern California is better than Southern California because of the trees. San Diego is nice, though. I wonder if there's a place where it's only fall and spring all the time. I wonder if you can tell the difference when it's fall and when it's spring in those places. I like the fleece I'm wearing. There's a hair on this fleece. It's nice outside today...

So I began to think about fall - that distant utopia of weather. But then again, spring is relatively the same temperature and has quite a good feeling associated with it too. So what's the difference?

Perhaps, like reaching the twilight of your life, the growing shadows and falling temps of autumn have a resolution to them - a peace. There is a settling. It's the earth lazily resting its eyes before sleep. There's cold coming. But until then it means soup, and hoodies, and sitting in bleachers, and cider, and tasting the chilled orange sunlight. Fall is the nightly ritual before a peaceful sleep and it is the slowing of time, the milking of every second before it leaves.
It is a long goodbye.

And unlike fall, spring is the awakening of delayed possibilities and forgotten hope. Spring knows there is more to come, that there is no time to waste; it must be enjoyed now. And although the days are longer, the time is shorter, and every good memory is just out of reach. Spring is smelling a refreshing garden hose in midday rain. It is the realization you've under-appreciated the sun your entire life. It's waking up to sunlight and feeling as though if you've missed its arrival you've missed the entire day. There's no time to waste.
It is a hurried hello.