Strange Days

It’s 70 degrees (F), warm and sunny here today--as if nature actually paid attention to the calendar. I’m used to snow or freezing drizzle on the first day of spring, but today feels more like May. My son and I even went out to the park and tossed a baseball around for a while. If there weren’t so much strife on the other side of the planet, I might feel giddy about this weather. Instead, I feel a mocking contrast, as I did on 9/11, when I watched the towers burn and collapse on a day of Mediterranean perfection, as far as weather went. Somewhere, right now, someone is trudging through a sandstorm, listening to the distant thunder of bombs exploding. And that thought keeps me from feeling springlike.