True Spring, True Love

One week ago, the real spring arrived in Portland, Oregon ...

Oh, I know it's not March 21, the actual "real spring" on the calendar, but believe me Portlanders do not pay attention to calendars when it comes to seasons.  Most seasons are more a feeling here in gradations, with a few of the obvious changes in nature and weather.  For instance, usually about mid-August, I can sometimes sniff autumn in the air, and then the next day I'll see my first leaf turning color, and winter is often just a different shade of grey in the sky, and summer arrives with rain and roses and just a touch of warmth after the 4th of July.  However, spring usually is never that subtle; it usually arrives any time between February and May with a bang.  And that's how it arrived on Tuesday, February 9.

It started out promising almost immediately.  The morning sunrise was a photographer's fantasy in pinks and purples and roses, the kind that makes you stand at your windows, coffee cup in hand, wishing you didn't have to go to work.  Usually a sky like that can dissolve into rain and grey in just a couple of hours, but not this day.  By 10 a.m., it was obvious that at the very least it was going to be a nice day, by noon everyone had jumped into the day with abandon, reveling in the steady sun and 60-degree temperature.  I wonder how many "mental health days" were phoned into work last Tuesday?  I don't know, but it seemed like everybody in Portland was out and about when I took a nice long walk.  And dogs!  Portlanders love their pups, but I also thought it seemed like every dog in Portland was out with their owner. 

There were smiles upon smiles everywhere I looked, even on the dogs.  If it weren't a truly sunny day, I almost would have thought it was Christmas day due to all the high spirits and just general goofiness.  Bump into someone at the store, not a problem, and the bumper and bumpee just laugh, throw their hands up, and remark "what a beautiful day."  Nothing more needs to be said to explain the buoyancy of spirit.  Being Portland, there were lots of bicyclists zipping around, and now "sophisticated" high schoolers were laughing and yelling and leaping on the way out of school.  Nobody mentioned any embarassment about white legs or arms sticking out of shorts and sleeveless tops; they were just too busy enjoying the sun and happiness all around them and soaking up energy from the sun. 

The very next day, our mercurical spring start returned to our long grey rainy winter, but people brought their first spring day memories out and dusted them off and talked about them for several days.  Spring will return, we'll love it unreservedly, but there's nothing else quite like our first true love, that first true day of spring in Portland.