the season of false hope

It's like fool's gold, so shiny and promising, but it isn't real and it get's me every time. I'm talking about these gorgeous, summery days that start happening in Portland in late winter/early spring. We just had two of them, right in a row. The sun comes out, it actually gets kind of warm, you walk out of your house without a jacket and scarf for a change. It's awesome! You smell the daphne blooming and see the croci and daffodils here and there. You notice the tiny buds in the trees starting to swell and you think "THIS IS IT! Spring is coming!"

And yeah, sure, spring is *technically* coming, but despite the hour and a half you spent baking in the sun yesterday, trying to get some color back in your face, actually *sweating* from the heat in the air for the first time since, say, that last hot day in October... despite the fact that just *yesterday* you were walking up to the coffeeshop in a dream, your skin caressed by the warm air, with bridsong in your ears, despite it all: today is a new day. A cold, gray, rainy day. A *winter* day. Remember winter? Yeah? Cuz that's the season you're actually in.

Anyway, those faux summer days are so nice though, as long as you don't start getting your hopes up. Otherwise you'll go crazy. Remember, you can't be guartanteed summer weather in Portland until the end of June. That's just the sad truth. Anything else is just a bonus.