Ready
By Melik
I can feel it coming. I can smell it coming. The scent is so strong that I can taste it. You know that damp, musty, Michigan basement smell that has a lingering effect on your nostrils? It is also similar to that smell that happens when you do not take care of your camping gear right away. When you come back to your tent and sleeping bag a week later to air it out and you smell that wet outdoorsy smell. I know it is coming because I can see it in people’s attitudes. People have reached maximum grumpiness. There are probably some that are about one snow storm away from going on top of a roof with an arsenal of snowballs ready to target passersby with their snow weaponry. Even the people that enjoy winter are rumbling a little. It seems like no matter where you live in this country that this winter whopped a wallop on you that has not been seen in years. It has not been this blistering frigid, snowy, icy or windy in Michigan in ten years.
We shivered through low temperatures breaking records that were over a century old. It is the most snow we have had in years, dwarfing us as snow-mountains erupted across the land. Right now, however, I do not care that my heating bill was at an astronomical level, because I can smell it. I know it will be here soon.
Spring excites me. I do not mind that some days I will have to layer up because I will not know if it will snow, be sunny and warm and then rain all in one day. I do not mind so much that my basement is going to start its seasonal pseudo destructive swamp creation. I guess I do mind that the small black mold patch is getting a little larger. That thought though is eclipsed by the welcoming warmth that has eluded me all winter. It is cliché to say you cannot really appreciate the good without some bad. I am going to especially appreciate the spring rains that will lead to some long hot summer nights that will allow me to escape into my version of freedom on my motorcycle. I am longing to be able to open the windows in my house so that I can feel the rush of a fresh summer breeze. Well at least until the winds shift around a bit and lovely cow patty smells from Moo-U begin to waft through.
Oh and then there are those sweltering August days that the nearby sewage plant makes my nose twist up and causes me to question how I can tolerate that putrid smell. I do not mind about those few things. To me that is a small price to pay to be able to frolic during the so called dog days of summer. I know my dog is more leisurely than when it is no degrees outside. When it is a wind chill of anything below zero those bathroom breaks seem to be at supersonic speeds.
I can hear the birds in the morning. The other day I saw several cardinals roaming around my neighborhood. I will deal with flies, mosquitoes and other creepy crawly things that disappear during the frigid months. Bring on the spring showers. I anxiously wait to be wrapped in the warmth of the sun. I will not complain about having a strong desire to turn on the central air cooling unit to help defray the affects of hot, humid, muggy Michigan day. Give me summer. I am ready.
~Melik – melik_2001 @ yahoo.com
