Thursday, February 08, 2001

As if…

It is 65 degrees today and sunny. The same teenagers passing my office window today in t-shirts and running shorts were yesterday clad in sweaters and corduroy trousers and heavy down jackets. This afternoon, at lunch, I will spread a blanket across dead brown grass under a bare tree and read from a novel while eating a sandwich and marveling at the fact that tomorrow's weather forecast calls for a high of 17 degrees with an 80 percent chance of freezing rain.

That is one of the many joys of living in mid-Missouri, the delightfully predictable unpredictability of the winter weather. Today, it is spring and the air is full of possibility. Tomorrow, it will be winter again and we can settle in to heed the groundhog's edict. For 24 hours, though, I can pretend that the world is new and romance is in the air and today will be the day he will call and forgive me and want to share my life again.