Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

 

I greeted the day with a sneeze.

Sneezing is a part of my skill set.

I’d walked outside and experienced a photic sneeze reflex, sun sneeze or ACHOO (Autosomal Cholinergic Helio-Ophtalmologic Outburst) syndrome. This reflex is characterized by a sneeze induced by exposure to an intensive bright light like sunlight.

Spring is like waiting for a sneeze to happen. You know the feeling — that close-to-a-sneeze tickle that causes odd facial expressions and often results in disappointment.

We spring ahead for no apparent reason. Rip Van Winkle had Issues with daylight saving time (DST). Don’t stick your sundial where the sun doesn’t shine. DST is time-traveling, but that extra hour of daylight causes curtains to fade faster. A 2014 study by a University of Colorado cardiologist found that switching to DST and causing people to lose an hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack by 25% on the first following Monday compared to other Mondays. By contrast, the risk of a heart attack fell 21% after the clock was returned to standard time and people got an extra hour of sleep.

Spring is a time of hope, renewal, awakening and potholes. Even Easy Street gets potholes that echo.

Our house cat Purl, takes a break from searching for sunbeams coming through windows and landing on carpet, to look for spring. She visits the entryway to see if the window has been opened to its screen. When that happens, it’s spring to her. She posts herself at that screen and keeps an eye and an ear on the chipmunk miscreants in the yard. That’s how Purl finds spring. Robins find it by getting three snows on their tails. We all have our signs of spring. Some look for UPS drivers wearing shorts. Others wait for that certain baseball or softball game. I listen for red-winged blackbird males singing, “Look at me” and watch for our lawn mower peeking out of a snow bank. I wonder if Leap Year gives frogs a jump on spring?

The Farmers’ Almanac, a masterful provider and explainer of mysteries, states the current seasonal lengths for the Northern Hemisphere are: Summer — 93.641 days, fall — 89.834 days, winter — 88.994 days, and spring — 92.771 days. That’s good to know. Why the difference? If the Earth made a perfect circle around the sun, the seasons would be equal. But it travels in an elliptical orbit. In its 365.2422-day tour, it’s closer to the sun at some points than at others. When it’s close, it speeds up. When it’s far away, it slows down. When the Earth is close to and hurrying by the sun, it’s during the fall and winter. As the Earth slows its pace after moving away from the sun, it’s spring and summer.

Thunderstorms prove that lightning doesn’t know how to conduct itself. Goldfinches sport new, brighter suits. Canada geese honk and wave. Birds come back to sing winter’s epitaph. A robin sounds like spring. The killdeer, nicknamed the noisy plover or chattering plover, calls its name. Birding would be much easier if all birds did that. Insects bring cultural diversity. Your neighbor Joe PerfectLawn mumbles repeatedly, “I lawn for you mower and mower each day.”

Spring is the time of the year when if it’s nice enough to do yardwork, it’s too nice to do yardwork. I drool over garden seed packets displayed at garden centers and hardware stores. I try to remember that nothing I grow will look anything like the pictures on those seed packages. The companies use professional vegetable and flower models.

Seasonal detritus appears. Things tossed from car windows spend the winter in snowy ditches and bloom in spring’s melted sogginess.

Zen philosophy says, “Sit quietly, do nothing. Spring comes and the grass grows by itself.” For lovers of spring and those weary of winter, every spring is reluctant. If spring is late, does that mean the calendar we got from the bank is defective?

No. Winter is nasty. There is little wonder spring is hesitant to push it aside. Better late than never. Even when it’s early, spring can never come too soon for many folks. Spring bounces around like a baseball at a hockey rink. One year, spring lasted nearly half an hour. I’ve put my winter coat in the closet. “Sit. Stay,” I told it. Whenever I’m sure spring has sprung, winter flicks my ear.

The first day of spring isn’t always the last day of winter.

I hope you wintered well and will continue to do so if necessary.

Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Saturday.