Almost a decade earlier, we had been living in San Diego, California, a place where the weatherman’s main job is to tell you just how pleasant the weather will be each day. Aside from the occasional hurricane, when neighborhoods purred with the sound of generators in everyone’s driveway, I had forgotten what “bad weather” even meant.
On that first trip to Maine, we were a little chilly. I know now, of course, that June isn’t really considered summer in Maine because Fourth of July hasn’t happened yet. But nevertheless, I specifically remember driving down Royal Road on the west side of Bangor and seeing children and a few parents sitting on their front steps. People watched our car as we rolled past, either because of the Florida plates or the fact that we were creepily eyeing houses for sale. There were orange traffic barrels near the park asking people to slow down.
I looked at my mom, who was along to help me find a house, in the passenger seat and asked, “Do you think there is a parade about to happen today or something?”
I could not think of any other reason why people would be sitting outside in the middle of the day if they weren’t on a beach. Up to this point in my life, weather was just the backdrop for other things like swimming, riding my bike, taking walks. It wasn’t an event in its own rite, and because it seldom changed much in California, especially, and Florida, for the most part, I never paid the weather much attention.
That June day driving around and house hunting was the beginning of me falling in love with Maine. Yes, even with its weather.
Each year, around this time, I’m reminded of those feelings again, except now I have the added benefit of knowing firsthand why everyone was sitting on their porch that day: they were celebrating the end of winter.
This is a celebration people in warmer climates, people who have to mow their lawns all year long, don’t get to experience, and it has become one of my favorite things about living in the north (that, and not mowing the grass for six months out of the year).
For me, waiting for spring is like waiting for a sneeze. Each day, we wake up and wonder … Will the last pile of snow melt today? Will the sun finally poke through? Will we sit on our front steps and feel the heat rising up from the concrete? Will the water finally drain from the backyard?
There are days when it seems like it will happen, and we rush to get in short sleeves, but by noon we are wrapping ourselves in cardigans again and turning up the heat. There are other days when it looks sunny and bright outside, but then we open the windows and a winter chill is still in the air.
Spring seems like it will never come. Most mornings in April end this way and are a disappointment, especially because the grass seems to be growing despite all of this and will need mowing relatively soon.
Then the day finally arrives, the first one since winter began, and our hope is restored. In 2018, that day came on Sunday — beautiful, warm, not-a-cloud-in-the-sky Sunday. And the neighborhoods knew it. Children were outside. People were walking. Bikes lay on their sides on front lawns. Basketballs thumped in the background. Sidewalk chalk adorned the walkways.
There was no parade, but it was a celebration just the same.
You can feel it when you go into the grocery store or stop for gas. It’s in the happy way people walk and say hello. Everyone senses the weight of winter releasing, and the fresh new buds on the trees promise something better on the horizon.
I have never met people who celebrate even moderately good weather as much or as well as Mainers do. The weather isn’t just a backdrop here, it is, in many ways, the rudder. And sometimes, when I look out my window and see the swelling of new buds on the trees or the first flowers poking through the dirt (the definition of perseverance and hope), I think what a pity it is that not everyone will experience that same anticipation.
Sure, the winters are hard and spring is wet and fickle. But I have lived in a city most people consider perfection (San Diego), and I can tell you that nothing compares to the way the state of Maine observes and celebrates its sunny days and the promise of summer.
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