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And now it's officially spring: I nearly managed to get sunburned today.

I love this weather. I love it when it finally turns warm, when the last of the chill is gone from the air and there's nothing left but the heat and the humidity and the sunshine. People switch to shorts, to skirts, to flip-flops and sandals and tank tops and go shirtless; a million different colors and style and sizes, and anything, anything, but the terrible uniformity of dark, bulky parkas. Bikes appear, and skates and skateboards and dogs on leashes and frisbees and baseballs and footballs, any excuse to be outside, and there's even the people who don't need an excuse, who just sit and lie in the sun for the sake of being there, in the warmth and the light and the grass. Dozens of them, hundreds, great masses of humanity celebrating the sun like they'd organized some ancient ritual.

And the colors. Everything has color; the grass turns a true green instead of yellow-brown, and even dirt deepens and is richer than the pale dust of winter. The sky is more blue, and the clouds and airplanes trails are bright white against it, like fresh paint instead of pale scars. The trees flower- I love these few days, when there's no leaves on the branches yet but everything is in flower instead: white and cream and rose and pink, the unreal fuchsia at the base of the magnolia blossoms. Those ones have huge petals, heavy, that litter the ground like snow or autumn leaves, but there's every size on down to the ones so tiny and light that they seem insubstantial, like if you touched them they'd smear to dust on your fingertips. And there's flowers on the ground too, in even more colors and sizes: the milk and butter and lemon of the daffodils, the tulips, red as cherry candy, and ones that I don't know the names of, in coral and pink and violet. When you walk under the trees, the air even smells the same as it feels: damp and soft like bruised petals. I'll pick up the fallen flowers and wear them in my hair, so every time I turn my head I catch that smell: the thick honey-sweet scent of spring and dying flowers.

And when the wind blows in before the coming thunderstorms, it's the first wind in months that hasn't been cold, that hasn't stung. It's not even cool, not really, just fast-moving enough to relieve some of the stickyness. The clouds roll in, deep blue-grey, and I saw one person still flying a kite below them, like a white bird against the early dark, even while the first few drops were falling, more imagined than felt, a mist so light it was indistinguishable from the humidity. The lightening bolts start out far away and without sound and come closer until they cast shadows, the thunder growing from rumbles to a crack like something physical, like something you can feel in your lungs. And then the long, long rain, the trickle and pouring of it, the cars on the street slushing through it, so everything sounds still and closed and safe.

I love it. I love it until I can feel the happiness like blood filling everything under my skin, until I smile at people I don't know on the street and look like an idiot, but oh. I love being alive, for just this moment, for just here, for always.