Spring on the High Plains used to be a lot different when I was younger. You could wake up first thing in the morning and the air was cool enough to give you goosebumps. The dew on the grass and other greenery outside was so thick you could smell it like rain. The light was somehow brighter and the sky bluer after a long winter of whites and grays everywhere you looked. This soft gentle palette would welcome you each morning and invite you into the outdoors again. As the day proceeded, the temperatures would continue to rise and you felt part of yourself reawaken inside to something new and ready to burst forth.

Now, the change is less something you welcome but more something you tolerate. Each morning you rise to muddy, sloppy roads with little remnants of snow sitting in dirty piles everywhere you look. The smell of dew is gone as there appears to be a thin layer of dust on everything highlighting the months of lack of use around you. The air is warm and dry even in the early morning hours. The coolness the evening before should have provided is not to be found. You will have four days of this, just beginning to wonder to yourself if you can switch from a heavy coat to a hoodie, or maybe its not too early to break out the flipflops. Then BAM! Old man winter comes knocking on your door with another round of cold winds, icy rain, and anywhere from two inches to two feet of snow. The thermostat in the house has to be raised again and all the windows you’d opened earlier in the week must be brought down once more.

You find that as you are getting ready to leave work you are either heavily over, or lightly under, dressed for the rapid shift that has taken place since you entered whatever building you are in. You begin to feel a tickle in your throat and a runny nose has made you once again the proud owner of the used tissue collection you’ve carried for months in every pocket and purse you have. You aren’t honestly sure if it’s the shift in weather causing your symptoms, or the seasonal allergies you used to have, or maybe the dreaded virus you’ve been trying to avoid these last two years. You’re just sure you can’t breath and you must have something ready for your nose at all times.

While I’m sure this is all the effects of the every continuing issues with climate change, for now at least I’ll have to accept that four days of spring and three days of winter is just going to be the “new normal.” Hopefully I can sleep in tomorrow morning and dream of the memories I have of the softer springtime’s of my youth.