Dear Spring, Save Me and Save Me Fast

It's been more than 100 days since I've been warm. Truly warm. And I'm about to lose it.

And this considering I grew up in Rochester, New York, where it snows every single day of the winter. (Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.)

And that our house came with a wood stove designed to warm a large family in outer Lapland.

And how I've always said how much I love winter, the cold and the snow.

Never again. This winter has broken my snow-loving, November-baby spirit. It will not end. 

I will be typing this same lament in May and then again in August when the outdoor water park not far from me is forced to re-brand itself as a luge facility.

It's like nothing I've ever experienced. You? 

Not the Blizzard of '77 in Buffalo, New York—which I remember mostly through playing this excellent board game—or the beautiful Blizzard of '96 in New York City, where I watched formerly jaded New Yorkers cross-country ski down empty Manhattan streets.

Those were historic, amazing and memorable experiences. 

This is just plain psychological torture. For everyone. 

The kids have taken to skateboarding inside, which makes me yell. The dog is sick of skittering across the ice-filled yard to do her business. I just want to plant something, anything. 

But it's sunny today! It's not so bad! 

OK, fine, yeah, yeah, a bit of warmer temps next week too, but snow again in the forecast for the 13th and back to freezing. 

My only solace are the teeny tiny reminders that spring unfolds when it must unfold, independent, as always, of our silly human wishes or needs. 

The spotting of a squirrel racing along the rail of deck. 

The chirps of the birds that to my untrained ear sound like they are just back from Boca and happy to be here. 

And, of course, those brief glimpses of something glowing yellow in the sky, promising sometime very soon, the true hug of warmth.