Oh my

It has been many years since I've lived in the south. Any south.

The south has existed for me forever - my mother's south. It was the south of my vacations - the beach, the heat, the family I both knew and didn't know.

I lived there for a few years a long time ago and while I enjoyed most of my time there, I remember swearing as I left North Carolina to move to Seattle, I'll never move back to the south. Too hot.

Twenty years later, exactly, I am back in the south. It's a different south, one that is unfamiliar to me - the south of lavender fields and olive groves and vineyards. But it's still really hot.

And by really hot I mean in the upper 80s this week kind of hot.

I have grand hopes of adjusting.

When March is in July

You might think I'm kidding. I'm really not. I even saw a rainbow today. The sky is moody here and that's definitely a March thing.

You have to think that it's on purpose - there must be a really good reason for March to be in July.

I'm quite certain I missed a couple of things in March the first time around. Maybe this is my chance to not miss them.

Maybe what I've learned since the first March of the year will guide me during the second one. Maybe I'll listen to the murmurs of truth that a spring month brings and not be afraid. Maybe.

Spring forward

I spent a couple of hours in a walled garden yesterday, my back to the sun. It was a beautiful day, a promise of spring, blue sky and warm sun.

A few minutes after I sat down, I saw a butterfly. And then I watched the lizards come out of their winter hiding places and sit, like me, backs in the sun.

My winter hiding place? Cafés and wine bars. I'm not sure how that differs much from what I do when winter is over.

We haven't changed the clocks yet. So, for a few weeks, I'm an hour closer to my friends and family in the States. Can you feel it?