Golden

Maybe you have to live in Snowstorm Region and drive every day on icy, snow-covered roads to appreciate how exciting it is in March when the snow begins to melt.

When I ran errands today, I left my mittens on the front seat of the car. I didn’t need them. When a friend called on my cell phone, I decided to return her call from the parking lot outside the store where I’d been buying pajamas for my mother-in-law. The sun struck the windshield, filling my car with warmth while we talked. I drove from the town where I live now to the town where my husband grew up, ten miles or so, without once worrying that my car would skid on ice or go spinning into a guard rail. Dry pavement is a wonderful thing.

I’ve still got banks of snow along my driveway, and I can’t see the grass on my front lawn, but the snow drifted against my front porch has the soft, tired look of spring snow, and the stones in my driveway are visible.

It’s not just the dry pavement, but the light that’s different this time of year. The dried grasses, the cattails, and the phragmites turn gold as the sun shines through trees that don’t yet have any foliage. Sun bounces off the metal mailboxes that have been tilted by snowplows, the pebbles that have been coated with salt and pushed to the shoulders, and the bare limbs of trees that are patiently waiting for spring.