Recently, I went to visit my daughter for spring break. I arrived to a two-hour time difference, only to arrive back home one week later to a three-hour difference. Just one of many differences between Arizona and Vermont.

What this does to a winter-habituated body is curious. One day I’m walking in 95-degrees, face toward the sun, opening confidently upward like the butterflies we watched wake up at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The next, I’m cocooned back under a foot of snow, wondering just what Punxsutawney  Phil was up to six weeks ago. A coyote in groundhog’s clothing, apparently [see spoof recommending his indictment].

The good news is, the body knows its cycles and I along with it. I am proud to live in a climate where winter is winter and, well, summer is summer. There is no denying it – when the snow is well past (say, by the end of May – although the June snowfall is not unknown in these parts), gardeners flock to mud patches like crows to seed. And transform them into incredibly beautiful plots that nourish body and senses. In remarkably short order. I can’t speak to the drama of spring to someone living in, say, Arizona. But I do know that last week it was very, very green. And that by summer, it will be very, VERY brown.

So feast your eyes on the two sides of spring I moved between last week. Enjoy them both, as I did. It’s not everyday you get to experience two completely different seasons on the same first calendar day of spring!