O my New Englanders,

O You fib, you tell tall tales, you make myths.

O why do you lie about the weather?

In a way this habit is touching, like a belief in Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy, teaching grade-schoolers to depict the seasons with construction-paper cut-outs of April showers followed by May flowers as if one resided in Camelot.

Myth One:

Spring is just around the corner

As though a few green tongues slicing up through semi-frozen soil,
or iron-hard buds poking out like thumbs,
trying to hitchhike their way south,
were signs of spring.
They are not.
As though
Pasty-legged fraternity chums in Bermuda shorts
suffering from hangovers and chilblains
oohing and aahing around a single crocus
were spring itself.
It is not.

Myth Two:

(……the reason I prefer New England to Los Angeles, Reykjavik, Acapulco, etc. is that……)

We have four seasons.
This is not true.
We have two seasons.

Season One:

Winter ——
an 8 month period lasting from November through June
Followed by a raw stretch of
….morning showers tapering off to snow squalls in the afternoon,
…scattered thunderstorms moving through to make way for steady rain,
…and for the weekend a cold snap with brisk sleet showers.

this unpredictable medley is punctuated by
the blossoming of a lone weeping cherry tree,
it sweet pink confetti tumbling across the parking lot,
random 90 degree sunny days.
Call these blessings, my friends,
but do not call them spring.

Season two:

Construction ——
a concretized stretch of weeks characterized by
superheated atmospheric inversions
and jackhammer dust,
a time of desolation in the metropolis
when the students leave for Europe,
or go off sailing to the Cape & the Islands,
leaving only
those wearing hardhats and earplugs,
And scruffy, displaced artists
who have sublet apartments here
because they cannot afford summer rent in their own apartments
in Rockport and Provincetown
the Artist Colonies…

Which leads us to

Myth Three:

We have an Ocean.
Ok, technically this is true,
But it is not for sissies.
On Saturday morning you must rise at 5 a.m.
drive for two hours
for the opportunity of waiting in line
to pay $20 before the parking lot fills up,
splash on Skin So Soft
to repel vampirish green heads
And no-see-ums
which, like invisible air-borne barracudas,
gnaw chunks of exposed human flesh.

While lugging your beach chair and cooler along the sandy path,
You will read signs
admonishing you to
Stay Away
from the dunes, the grass, the trees or any living plants,
to wear long sleeved white clothing and long white pants
tucked into white socks inside white tennis shoes.
to continually scan
for moving freckles
And, obviously, to burn your clothing the moment you return home.

These signs have a scolding tone,
as do the Pollution Indexes warning us to stay inside.
Which seem to shift the blame onto us,
The breathers.

Myth four:

We have foliage.

No, that one is true.
We do have foliage and it is spectacular, but you must be quick.
because the appearance of the first flaming maple leaf in Boston,
signals that branches are bare in Vermont, Maine, & New Hampshire,
It’s all cornflakes on the ground now, my sweets,
And covered in a foot of snow.

But,
Spring is just around the corner.

When I first moved to Boston,
I waited along with you
But became enraged as each promised season failed to materialize,
I swore at leafless trees,
and heirloom furniture parked on the streets between colossal snow drifts

But now I am at peace.
Because O my New England

I have learned that the hand gestures and facial expressions
At rotaries and stop lights
the horns honking and taxi drivers jumping out of their cars.
Are native forms of celebrations,
The flipping over of out-of-state vehicles by sports’ fans
Is a type of communal theater,
Hello, I wave back, smiling.
Go Sox, Go Patriots, I yell, honking in unison.

We live in New England!
where wind fingers icily under our collars.
where the red line screeches from Central into Harvard Station.
I disembark into the acrid electric scent of subway’s back draft,
sprint up the metal stairs of the out-of-order escalator,
and stride onto the gray pavement
polka-dotted with historical chewing gum,
And I am glad.

When I hear your minor myths:

Boston wears an emerald necklace,
Boston is a very livable city,
OR
We can just hop on 93 and be there in no time…
I smile

Hope is cruel
thus I have deserted it.
So now,
I love you New England,
I love your peoples and your libraries,
I love your cappuccinos and your concerts,
Your artists and your architecture,
Your tabernacles and your theaters,
Your rowdy fans and your rivers.

Oh my New England, my Boston, my Cambridge, my Somerville, my Medford, my Worcester
You awaken spring in my Southern heart.

© CD Collins