March 1st has always been the first day of Spring for me.

Not astronomically. Not technically. Simply.

March, April, May — three months. One Season.
June, July, August — Summer.
September, October, November — Autumn.
December, January, February — Winter.

Four Seasons. Three equal months each. Clean. Understandable. No misunderstandings. No negotiating with it.

That calendar has served well for a very long time.

There was a time — and it does not seem so very far away — when the rest of life followed that same rhythm without effort.

School began the day after Labor Day. September 1st felt like Autumn because it was Autumn. The air had changed. The light had shifted. Dry leaves skittered across pavement, and new notebooks carried the faint smell of paper and promise. The year turned, and we turned with it.

Thanksgiving rested easily in November, wrapped in brown fields and early twilight. Christmas arrived in December, fully claimed by Winter. The school year stepped aside before Memorial Day, and when June 1st appeared on the calendar, Summer truly began — open windows, long evenings, barefoot freedom.

The Seasons did not overlap or crowd one another. They followed in order, like towns along a well-marked road.

Somewhere along the way, that tidy rhythm shifted. Children now return to school in early August, when the cicadas are still calling and the sun is in no mood to soften. School years sometimes stretch into late May and wander across the threshold of what used to feel unmistakably like Summer. The edges blur.

No complaint here. Life changes. Schedules adjust. The world rearranges itself as it always has.

Still, there is a quiet comfort in remembering when the year turned cleanly.

And perhaps even more comfort in choosing to let it turn that way again — at least in one’s own mind.

Because in a very few days it will be March 1st.

And here, that means Spring.

The ground may still be cold. The trees may not yet agree. There may be one more sharp morning or short-lived snowfall waiting to remind us that Winter does not give up easily.

Even so — Winter has finished.

The wild onions are standing tall in my yard. And wild onions are never wrong.

Spring has begun.

If only mentally.

There is something steadying about that decision. A line drawn not in the dirt, but in the heart. A quiet shift from endurance to expectancy. From bracing against the cold to watching for green. Watching for the wild onions. Listening for the bird songs.

Not everything in life keeps tidy boundaries. Most things do not.

But sometimes, we are allowed to choose our markers.

Sometimes we are allowed to say that Winter has had its say.

Sometimes we are allowed to step forward — even if the frost lingers in the shade — and call it Spring.

Three months. One Season.

The page has turned.

Set the date. Spring begins here. On March 1st.

And that is that.

May it feel like Spring where you are, too — even if only in the quiet places of the heart.

— Jim  (and Red!)

P.S. from Little Red Bear — Children rarely argue with the Seasons. When Spring nudges the air, they simply believe it. Grown-ups are the ones who tend to stand around and discuss whether it is official.

Pen-and-ink illustrations created with the assistance of AI and lovingly styled for Little Red Bear Land.