It's Spitetime in New England!

The snow was just enough to make everything feel magical, which would have been appreciated in December. It was March. I took this photo one recent “spring” morning. Welcome to New England—all 8 seasons.

Summer arrives close to July, which is not a moment too soon because you’ve just taken the flannel sheets off the bed and turned the heat off. We enjoy a week of sunny, pleasantly hot temperatures and low humidity before things turn. Now you’re living in a straight up gasoline fire until late August. Your dog will not want to set her paws on the searing pavement, giving you a look that says “Bitch, literally, please!” anytime you mention going outside. You nod because this is completely relatable.

Once there was a time when September actually felt like the start of fall. Labor Day marked the end of summer. The air acquired a gentle coolness, enough to reach for a light jacket. Leaves began to show hints of the color that would settle in properly over the coming weeks. Thanks to the unsurprising and unmitigated disaster of decades of climate change, that is no more.

September marks the start of Off-Brand Summer, the Prado of summer, if you will. Temps ping-pong around the 60 and 70-degree ranges with a few 80-degree afternoons thrown in for fun. It’s warm enough to hang out on the patio without a sweater, but not hot enough to keep rocking those tank tops and cute wrap skirts. Do not be fooled! You will be tempted to keep up with your punishing waxing-hair-removal-body-grooming regimen required by the sexy, sultry days of True Summer. This is a fool’s errand! Instead, use this time to prepare for the inevitable emotional and physical molting that awaits you in the seasons ahead.

Fortunately, just when you’re ready to give in and pair socks with your sandals, Fall shows up. Sort of. Fall is a two act play: Act I: #AutumnVibes; and Act: II: Stick Season. Sometime between late-September and early-October Nature gets down to business. Cold nights leave frost on the grass in the morning. The sun starts to slip lower, but the light it casts is particularly brilliant. Most importantly, the leaves change color. Leaf “peeping” thrusts New England into a Defcon 5 situation. People pour in from all over the world to drive through our forests and mountains and adorable, Puritanical little towns to see the trees absolutely engulfed in color. Chunky sweaters, engagement photos in apple orchards, #AutumnVibes trends on Instagram—hard.

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy goes from monochrome Kansas to technicolor Oz. The same thing happens in New England, only in reverse. The color drains from the leaves along with the rest of the landscape. Cue Stick Season. The trees are naked. The mornings are dark.  Everyone’s yard looks like the “after” photo of a nuclear test site. It’s no wonder that people start putting out holiday decorations and lighting their porches up with blinking lights the second Halloween is in the rear view. No. Judgment.

The redeeming thing about Stick Season is that it primes you for Winter, an epic that makes Gone With the Wind feel like the length of a Superbowl commercial. Bring on the snow! You’ll say for a hot minute, feeling festive in the spirit of the holiday season. You’ll also just long to see something other than the slurry greys and browns and occasional dirty orange colors that have colonized the world outside your door. You will get your wish. And then you’ll regret it. Winter is a toddler and she is just biding her time to turn on you.

At first Winter plays nicely. The steady cold is bracing, but also refreshing. The air has a clarity to it that makes you believe the planet could make a comeback and David Attenborough will have to eat his dire words. It snows! It’s briefly glorious and special and fun. You’re not even crying when dusk sets in around 3 pm. Then, without much warning, a shift, a turn, a gathering of storm clouds over some distant mountain peak. Seemingly unprovoked, your precious Winter toddler unleashes a tantrum to make Shiva blush. This is January and most of February.

Blizzards. Nor’easters. Sleet. More snow. Ice that turns the street into an Olympic luge track. How about a week where the high for the day is seven degrees and there is something called a “cold advisory” in effect. Your dog will not want to set her paws on the pavement that has turned the temperature of liquid nitrogen, giving you a look that says “Bitch, literally, please with this AGAIN!” anytime you mention going outside. You nod because this is completely relatable. There will be some who enthusiastically proclaim they LOVE Winter and can’t get enough of its arctic terrorism. These people should be avoided, unfriended, basically cut out of your life forever. No good can come from such reckless positivity and zest for life. In fact, they might be cyborgs. Beware!

Thankfully, like every toddler, Winter eventually tires herself out. She might hurl the occasional sippy cup across the room in the form of miserable hybrid weather—rain/sleet, snow/rain. But for the most part she doesn’t have it in her anymore. You end up with 10K worth of damage to your house and she’s passed out on the kitchen floor cuddling a plastic salad bowl or “Bowly” as she’ll call it for the next three years.

But good news: you made it! Daylight Savings ends and the sun climbs higher every day. The glaciers recede, birdsong returns to the yard. It’s Springtime! Wait, sorry. That’s a typo. It should be Spitetime.

Blue skies and high clouds, it sure looks warm outside. HA! Nope. It’s still struggling to break into the 40-degree range. Sure, a 60 or even 70-degree day will slip in, filling you with all kinds of false hope that you can confidently pack away your sweaters and boots. Not so fast. Mud Season is the crown jewel of Spitetime. A reliable pattern of rain-cold-thaw repeat that

turns everything that isn’t paved into slippery, dirt sludge you’ll track all over the house and vacuum out of your car for the next five months. Also, snow is still very much in play. April can bring a fantastic 3 or 6 inches of the white junk. Bet you wish you had spent that hundred dollars on shoes instead of tulip bulbs that are too traumatized to bloom thanks to the “fluke” snowstorm, which is actually a regular thing now because, again, avoidable climate change.  

One lovely week in May, Spring arrives. I have to say, it is worth the wait. In the span of 48-hours, Nature goes completely free-love-dance-like-no-one-is-watching. Anything that can flower or leaf does so in spectacular fashion. The world is a living Monet canvas. The smell of grilling wafts through the neighborhood. You peel off clothing layers in wild Josephine Baker fashion. Everything feels possible—start a podcast, quit your job, finally get around to telling your sister she’s adopted! Enjoy these next 8-12 days of feeling invincible before Summer starts and makes you question your life and wardrobe choices. Spring in New England is the LSD trip you not only deserve, but you need in order to forget what you just endured and remind you why you can’t bear to live anywhere else.