my back yard lilac and forsythia

Spring Forward? Give thanks for the time change? Not me. And that's not the only reason I don't like spring. Let me count the ways.

All that bright light gives me a migraine.

Between the sun beating on my eyelids, the birds hollering, and the young-married whippersnapper next door d-i-y-ing it with hammer and chopsaw, who can sleep in?

When the snow melts, the yard is— an eye sore. Gardening. Some people love it. Which reminds me.

Mud. Tracked in the house. Daily.

One day it’s cold. One day warm. I’m either under-dressed or over-dressed. Shivering or sweating.

Mid-March, the sky dumps a foot of snow the day I dance with the troupe for the first time at a fundraiser. Wearing heavy weather boots and down coat over ankle length costume, I trip on all that fabric climbing the steps into the building. Almost tossed my wig catching myself. I have a temper. Especially when I’m a red head.

Passover, and ten days of matzo. Which morphs to concrete in the colon. That’s why it’s called the Bread of Affliction. And/or a guilt-by-association Easter plunge back into chocolate/jelly bean addiction. Well, relapse is part of recovery.

The first of two (global) peak incidences of depression (the second in fall). Sicker patients at the office. More patients paging after hours. That’s why shrinks practice medicine. God forbid I get out of practice.

Spring cleaning. I found myself slogging through six years’ worth of paperwork mounded on my home “desk.” Why? Act of God? Brain blow-out? Who knows. I couldn't stop. Hours of decisions ended up shredded in five garbage bags. It was horrible. When the desk grows another paper pustule, I'm not touching it.

Taxes.

People EVERYWHERE, faces turned up to the sun, biking, jogging, walking around, cluttering up the landscape.

On the up side, spring too shall pass. Besides, it’s not all bad. There’s the student dance recital coming up. And Son’s May Day birthday, his twentieth. Talk about spring green.

The troupe’s next gig, we’re the half-time entertainment at the May “bout” (a.k.a. game) of the local, all-girl, roller derby club. That ought to be wild and clashy. Like spring.

Spring snow—

Kids in shorts and sneaks,

no socks