I’m writing to you from a Midwestern season I semi-lovingly refer to as The Thaw. We’ve cleared the postcard phase of winter — the fat twinkle lights, the bow-strapped storefronts, the flattering first snow — but spring has not yet agreed to show up. Last night, when I walked my dog, Otto, it was 64 degrees. This morning at the park, it was 30. The air feels fickle, almost flirtatious, as if it enjoys the misdirection.
There are other tells. The patch of bus-stop snow that’s turned the color of weak coffee, shared democratically with a pack of teenage boys wearing basketball shorts under their puffer coats. The sweet, slightly feral smell of soil shrugging off ice. The persistent plunk, plunk, plunk of icicles dripping into an aluminum gutter — a sound that is less birdsong than plumbing.
