Spring in Minnesota

Yes, it's spring in Minnesota. More often than not, that means a foot or so of snow, with more on the way, temperatures in the low single digits overnight, with below-zero windchills, and a bunch of grumpy people who have stoically waited out January and February, and now wish to receive their reward. Next month. The cruelest month.

But the light. The March light! This light doesn't fit piles of snow. This light is for green grass and flowering crabs. It's for baseball and walks at dusk. Have you ever noticed there's no such thing as dusk in the winter? Night wants to hurry in when it's cold.

But spring in Minnesota is for yearning, and we are awfully good at that, we quiet Norwegians and stolid Germans. Nobody knows yearning like we do. Nobody knows waiting like we do. So March will pass and April will hypnotize us, and we'll forget what January was, and stay here for another summer, another fall, at least one more mad winter.