It’s Not Cabin Fever

In mid/late March a kind of itch stirs deep down inside me—an itch that is simply not able to be scratched. The solution lies outside myself, and it seems that there’s nothing I can do but wait. And wait I must—but with increasing impatience and petulance. The hankering behind the itch is to get outdoors; to once again soak up the sun’s warmth and play in the dirt.

Back in January and February the discomfort was called cabin fever. The cold and forbidding outdoors kept us mostly confined to the vicinity of the woodstove. We knew winter was in charge and would continue to hold sway for a couple of months. There was little hope of staying outdoors for any length of time, so we suffered heroically and stoically and turned to indoors activities.

But then a freak 75-degree day in early March draws you outside, and puts visions of veggies and berries in your head. It’s a glorious experience! But it’s nothing more than a tantalizing untimely taste of spring. Cold reality quickly sets in and tells you to hang on—true spring with its rebirth of life is not yet here.

Disappointingly we withdraw inside once again and feel that itch grow a little more irritating. No, it’s not cabin fever. It’s more like being in prison, but you know you’re about to be paroled. The misery is that you don’t know when you’ll be released. Someone else (Mother Nature is the warden in this case) holds the keys and insists upon dawdling with other preoccupations—disinclined to care about the fact that you are on tenterhooks and frustrated at your powerlessness to do nothing but pace the cage. Take a deep breath, let out the pent-up disgruntlement, and take solace in the knowledge that your day outside will come.