I Have Often Walked Down This Street Before

I walk out of class and pass a marquee that tells me it is sixty degrees out here. My social sense of temperature is still set to New Mexico standards (I don’t think this will ever change) and it tells me this is still on the cold side, but as I walk home, I take off first my black velvet sweater and then, a little later, along the roadside, my magenta sweater. I am walking along the street in a grey short-sleeved shirt and lots of layers on the bottom half and it feels so good to my arms to be finally exposed to air and sun after a long winter of hiding. I get home and promptly strip off my striped brown pants, my black dance pants, my socks, and my black sparkly tights. I change into my flowy orange/mustard/red/black/white-striped dance shorts and turn on my computer. My toes wriggle in the warmth and the freedom. My arms and my legs have stripes on them from my nails running up and down them because winter skin is being shed. My weather man tells me it’ll snow this weekend, but I’m not bummed much because I know it’ll melt like New Mexico snow. Spring is here to stay. I know it. Everything in me sings of it.

Too bad I’ve got two papers due on Monday.