This happens every year, where we live.  Truly, I promise it does, and one day I’m going to look up past data to confirm it.  There are always a few days in February–sometimes January–where it’s sixty-five degrees and sunny, and it feels like spring has sprung; even though all the weather forecasts promise a change in two days.

My son had a youth group outing at a big new arcade place, so I dropped him off and took my daughters (plus a friend) to our neighborhood park.  They played all morning together, with the sun occasionally disappearing behind thin clouds only to reappear again, warming the playground even through the still-cool breeze.  We watched geese wander across the park to the pond.  They discovered a hollowed-out tree perfect for animals to hide in.  My youngest was surprised by the arrival of her neighbor friend, and they played house and tag and hide-and-seek and all the dozens of things that short-attention-span three-year-old’s can play in an hour.  It was so warm all the girls shed shoes and ran barefoot.  Then we wandered to the school playground next door to spend the rest of the morning, until we had to load up and collect brother.

Is disconcerting the word I want? Maybe disjointed?  There was something about taking three grubby girls, all windblown and pink-cheeked and dusty, into the sleek new bowling/arcade/zip-line/food court…..a collision of two different worlds. (Disturbing, maybe?  That seems a little extreme….)  My son’s event was scheduled months before, so I wasn’t bothered too much by him spending the morning there: nobody expects pleasant weather in mid-February.  But the idea that families were arriving that day to shell out their dollars in a cavern that overwhelmed with flash and spin when it was sixty-five degrees out in February.…

Don’t you see?  You grab those days. You take those when they come and you revel in them, outside, in the fresh air.  There’s plenty of time to hole up and breathe manufactured HVAC.  We get quite a few opportunities for that where we live, on either extreme.  But when you get springtime in February, you tell the kids let’s go outside.  And guess what? It’s free!  No, there’s no video monitors or strobe lights or generic pop music at full volume, but I bet you can live without that for a day.

Go enjoy a spring day!  It’s winter.  And tomorrow’s forecast is cloudy with a high of 45.