The Happiest Time of Year, and What are the Odds?

...I ran into Ariel and Kelsey on the metro today. Same train, same car.

Now I shall read to you from my notebook.

O, loathsome March.

It begins innocently enough, with a slight lifting of temperatures and an odd quality to the air that can only be described as a different smell. The smell of spring. It rains a little, once or twice. The sun beats down on us with greater force. We do not often realize exactly what is upon us until about ten days in.

Then, the slush hits.

The slush hits -- a horrible grey mass, squelching as we stumble onto the street. The sky, seeking to parallel the dismal world below, fades to a putrid blankness, a cloud cover so constant it seems solid. The remaining snow, found tucked away in pockets in backyards and driveways, turns black and rots away, leaving behind last year's waste -- the squalor once shielded from us by the purity of winter. The tulips are found venturing boldly above the surface of the earth, as they have done for fifteen years, and the squirrels are found biting their flowers off, as they have done for fifteen years.

In April, there are rainstorms and snowstorms, and much of the foulness left after the snow is washed away. Then, at least, we begin to sight summer on the horizon -- one last breath, one last gasp of air before we are hurled into the abyss of grade ten.

It snowed today, too.

And I know I'll get there, because I will not be defeated.