New Dawn

As I stood out back in the deepening blue of early evening, bedecked in one of my I-don't-feel-pretty-ragwool-sweaters to ward off the slight chill, I caught myself thinking it was a lovely early summer evening. I realized the queerness of the thought within the heartbeat it coalesced within the walls of my skull; the month wasn't even a few days old yet, and, usually, it wasn't out the question for at least one more accumulating snow. In the moment I was noticing how many deciduous had leafed out here at ninety-one sixty. My muse either stood as a testimony to the odd weather as of late or the abstractness of time, perhaps both. Take your pick.

It is still the limbo between skiers and summer tourists and the hummingbirds are still a few days to a week away from their first appearance. Yet, the town sewer project has started again and the river runs as though spring runoff has already passed. Sabina engaged in a mammoth clean/purge project in our back room and the children are still in school. Yet, the travelers that ask about local attractions give me a slightly concussed look when I say their seasonal opening are a few weeks off. See, it's already hot in those lower places they're traveling from.

Perhaps, since the empirical omens and portents point toward a warming, and, already warmer world, the starting gun of summer tourists will shift from Memorial Day to May Day. There's a possibility the I-don't-feel-pretty-sweaters won't be necessary to ward off a chill of an early summer's eve. It's conceivable our Sahel will be cooler than down below still, but not the paradise snow-birds so seek. Maybe seeing the deciduous leafing out as early as they have at ninety-one eighty won't be so shocking. It could be we are collectively looking upon a new dawn, but won't really, really notice it until midday.   

I'm sure there are those who would call me melodramatic at best and mad at worst, and I've stated before how hard it is for me to take a doomsayer seriously. Be that as it may, I can still recall one late season afternoon and the sight of a dandelion, which began a certain growing feeling that things have changed. That things are changing. It is a sensation between curiosity and trepidation. For better or worse is not something I really concerned myself with. Instead, I find myself wondering, with the new dawn, how we will survive the coming day.