Every year the weather does something dramatically different here in Beacon. Like the time a huge snow dump fell in March 2017, or the years that the just-blossomed magnolia tree petals were snowed on more than one year in a row. Or the time one of the worst blizzards with power-outages happened in October 2011. Memory doesn’t serve when recalling these swings in the weather, and the usual reaction is to freak out.

In this year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the stubbornly cold mornings and rainy afternoons have added to the trying times as we all stay home, and pine to go outside for something different. Yet, during the time of coronavirus, when the weather is nice, a new natural fear creeps in that everyone will forget about the invisible beast and go out to walk Main Street and gather together in parking lots and back yards. It is so hard to remember the threat we cannot see.

Thank goodness for daily briefings from Governor Cuomo in New York and Dr. Amy Acton, MD, MPH Director of Health for the Ohio Department of Health (see the New York Times deep-dive grammar-based analysis of why Dr. Amy’s message of staying home is so effective to those who believe her, yet House Republicans in Ohio refuse to even own a mask as they tried to strip her of recommendation power - she is strongly supported by Republican Governor Mike DeWine). Ohio had a swift shut-down policy. As of today, Ohio has 21,131 confirmed cases and 1,271 deaths, while neighbor Michigan, who also has a governor who maintains a stay-at-home order but contends with groups of dissenters, has 46,756 confirmed cases and 4,526 deaths.

At this point, the only way this blogger has come to be able to live in peace with this cold weather is to view it as a polar vortex that is saving lives by keeping us indoors - even if at all. For the record, last year was a chilly May. I know this because my daughter’s birthday is in late May, and for the past 5 birthdays, it had been brutally hot - almost 90 degrees - balloon popping hot. Last year, not so much. And it rained. Roses are expected to bloom in late May, so on this sunny Mother’s Day Weekend, we’ll see if they come out on schedule this year, or if they have been developing a new normal.