{"id":3075,"date":"2019-03-12T17:02:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-13T00:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/?p=3075"},"modified":"2019-03-12T17:02:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-13T00:02:42","slug":"the-first-day-of-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/2019\/03\/the-first-day-of-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Day of Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Was today the first day of Spring? How does one tell? In other parts of the country Spring&#8217;s heralds are sunshine, warmth that penetrates to your bones (not yet, Portland, not yet), a <em>second<\/em> robin, and daffodils in bloom. Portlanders often call on these, but we have another way to reckon the year&#8217;s progress, up here, west of the Cascades. We attend to our rain and its <em>quality<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Which brings me back to my question. Was today, March 12, the first day of Spring 2019?<\/p>\n<p>I ask because &#8230; returning from lunch I parked my car in the college&#8217;s North lot and stepped out into sunshine. 100 strides later, I stepped onto the Blue Bridge under gray clouds and the beginning of a fine rain. The storm intensified as I kept walking south across the Canyon, and as I left the Bridge behind and turned east I seriously considered opening my umbrella. But, barely had I begun to mull this possibility over when I found myself rounding Eliot Circle, back in sunshine and a fine mist that was the only memory of what had just come before. I entered the Chemistry building in full sunshine ready to put all thoughts of rain and umbrellas behind me. And yet, 90 seconds later, as I swung open my office door, the scene outside had been transformed once again. My office window was awash with the fierce gray tat-a-tat and dark skies of another Portland rain shower.<\/p>\n<p>Such is Spring in Portland. And it lasts a full 3 months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Was today the first day of Spring? How does one tell? In other parts of the country Spring&#8217;s heralds are sunshine, warmth that penetrates to your bones (not yet, Portland, not yet), a second robin, and daffodils in bloom. Portlanders&nbsp;&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/2019\/03\/the-first-day-of-spring\/\">finish&nbsp;reading&nbsp;The First Day of Spring<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3077,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3075\/revisions\/3077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/alan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}