It's starting to hit.

Spring fever.
It has sprung its ugly, yet hopeful head.

It hit me yesterday when it was so brilliantly sunny and bright, and I could hear the staccato drip-drip of the snow melting into colossal puddles on the front walk that I had to leap over.

It hit me this morning as I walked around the school in the spring-scented-yet-chilly winter air as I remembered seeing those same types of rays of sun coming down to earth in stripes through back lit clouds as a kid and thinking, "They're taking someone home to heaven" - how innocent and kind of profound for a young Catholic school girl with a crooked smile and vast imagination.

It hit me sitting at my parents' kitchen table with the sun pouring in around Mom and I as we read the papers and caught up, not needing the little heater for warmth for the first time in weeks.

It hit me as I ran out to my car before I left their house, as the moon - high and bright in the sky - ricocheted off the snow refreezing from today's defrost.

And it hit me when I got home and didn't have to crank up the heat too much to keep this drafty old house comfortable. (An Eskimo would fare well with me, me thinks, or a narwhal at the very least.)

That's the magic of spring fever I guess.
It's like a mirage - just when you are fooled into thinking "It's over!" and get the itch to crack open a window or stop wearing a jacket, you remember that it's only early February - we've still got a lot of winter left.
[Deep sigh.]