The Certain Sign of Spring

Magnolias.  A fleeting flower here in the north.  Often as not killed entirely by a late freeze... never mind frost, one isn't safe from a freeze or a snow really, till June.

 

 

But we've made it, finally, it seems for the year.  A few wilted petals, a spoilt early crop or two... finally May is round the bend, and tolerably seasonable weather has appeared. 

 

I though it safe to say "spring" by last Saturday.  When the sun came out on high and the temps soared to a dizzying seventy Fahrenheit, that made it pretty certain.  And yard sales which are heavily attended-that was another sign.  But a fabulous afternoon barbeque picnic in the park by the river, with games to play, sealed the deal.  Not because of the picnic itself, mind.  We had a picnic two Sundays earlier...



 ...in the Lenten roses and the bluebells of the Poet's Garden.  But that wasn't what said spring.  The fact is, nothing says spring as surely as the day that the young women en masse, as instinctively as the return of the robins, shave to respectability and don their light dresses and shorts.  I don't know how they know.

Personally, I am always clinging, a little reticent and shivery, to my sweater on the first few balmy seventy-or-so days.  I like nearly eighties to put on a sundress or skirt comfortably.  And I am neutral on the matter of shorts, pretty well all summer.  Moreover, going one more day without sitting in the sun, counting the little hairs on my knees that I missed (which is an eternal aggravation to me) is well worth one more day snugly sheathed in jeans.

Then there is the bother of dragging the tubs of summer clothes out of the basement, putting away the winter clothes, hoping devoutly you will not need them again the very next day, sorting through the family clothes, seeing what fits who and what needs permanently stored or donated...

This, I am sure, is why they invented the maxi-dress.  For me.  For women getting too old or too busy or too lazy or too many children or too whatever to heed the imperious call of the spring sun with all it entails.  We can salute spring quietly in our own backyards, sip our mint tea, enjoy the wind in our skirts and shave solely our ankles!