Why hello, snowy end of a mid-Atlantic March. How quasi New England of you!

I jostled down the six flights of stairs in my usual way, avoiding an elevator option that seemed to only expand the waistlines of the more retired military folks in our building.

Down. Down. Down. Down.

The skin on my kneecaps grated gently against the polyester scratch of my khaki uniform, and as I moved, I suddenly recognized a sound that was distinctly out of place. Woods Hole. A foghorn. Nobska. A layer of thick moisture obscuring a colony of channel markers and boats in a state of gentle toss. Metal on metal. While descending this enclosed space of air and cinder block, suddenly I could hear and see it all.

I looked down at my right hand. My index finger was hooked around the top of a stainless steel bottle as my thumb kept a clamping grip on my flattened garrison cover. The naval officer’s crest that is affixed to leading edge of my hat clanked gently against the bottle with each footfall on the concrete stairs. I may be a sailor by profession, but right now I am miles away from what I would describe as my natural element. Thank god for unexpected sentimental journeys.

Right about now, everyone here in our nation’s capital is desperate for a bit of escapism.  As I sit here and look out my apartment window, the snow continues to fall and I can’t help but smile. Sure, like everyone else I am standing on tiptoe and peeking over March’s fence in the hope that April will be positively tropical, but I am also feeling a bit ambivalent about this final winter weather system.

The summer season is great, but at the same time, any chance to watch the snow coat bare tree branches is like a free trip into my cracking copy of Robert Frost’s Poems. Yes, I’m that kind of a New Englander.

I remember the day that I got the book, even though I was only ten years old at the time. My dad had bought it for me while on one of his many trips as an airline pilot, and on the inside cover he wrote the following:

2/10/88

I bought this today for Megan for she’ll know what he’s saying.

-Dad

Throughout the book he took a pencil and marked his favorite poems, “Birches”, “The Wood-Pile”…. and then when a one Mr. Louis Untermeyer provided a passage of commentary for each poem, Dad defiantly crossed out each of his paragraphs.

“You don’t need anyone telling you what a poem should mean.” he said as he showed me around the book before handing it over. Although I was young, I remember thinking that I needed to file this advice away, even if I personally didn’t think that I would ever understand all of Mr. Frost’s words.

And so we’re fed up here in DC. We are starting to take this winter personally. I, too, could stand to improve upon myself with a bit more sunshine to get me through the day—but I’m also pretty darn homesick as I make my way through this tour of duty. Sure, DC is a pretty great town in which to spend a few years, but at the end of the day, it is far from my idea of home.

Whose neighborhood this is, I think I know…cuz Mashpee kids really are the best!

I always relish the chance to head north, just as much as I appreciate the fact that I can’t help but smile whenever I’m able to make a mental association to places happy and familiar. I have no idea where life will take me next, but it certainly boosts my morale to know that I keep home close in heart and in mind.

And now how about we all start observing that goddamn vernal equinox, shall we? This New Englander is starting to get cranky.