This morning, I walked my dog through a cold rain and looked in despair at yesterday’s snow. The clouds were a smothering gray. There was not even a stirring of spring. This was confusing to me because on Saturday—the last day of February, which was spiritually March—the sun emerged from hiber nation and the air finally felt warm. I took my first outdoor run of the year then sat outside at Gemini with a friend. It was mayhem in the streets, the frenzied energy of early spring: kids shrieking, adolescents inappropriately clad, sirens wailing, dogs barking, people drinking and carousing and smoking on stoops—everywhere, signs of life.  But March giveth, and March taketh away. That’s why it’s the worst month of the year. Among my many correct-but-underappreciated opinions is that spring is a horrible season. How fickle it is! A liar, a tease, it baits you with hope: The drugstores fill with bright yellow Peeps, with displays of sunglasses and Zyrtec and trowels. Coats go on sale. Bikinis are advertised for spring break. March unfurls its irresistible little tendrils—a bright and mild morning, the singing of a bird—and then snatches it all away. The average day in March is better than today, but not by all that much. When I was younger, I thought that February was the cruelest month. Objectively, it’s bad: The holiday glow has faded and we are left tired and cold and trundling through slush, dragging ourselves home in the 5PM darkness, feeling listless and disembodied, not having encountered our own skin for months. A friend always laments that the winter is bare of smells: flowers, earth, even garbage. Everything is muted and suppressed. There is so little life. But February, at least, gives us no hope. That’s a kindness, since we know exactly what to expect. In February, I read and make stews and barely go out. I tell my friends I’ll see them later. I never check the weather because what’s the point? Each and every day will be grim. That’s tolerable when you don’t really remember that anything else is possible, when the notion of “better weather” is an intellectual abstraction, a dim memory like the scent of sunscreen or your grandmother’s favorite perfume.  But once I’ve had a day like Saturday, I cannot tolerate one like today. On Saturday, I drank a cup of tea in the sunlight. I took a walk to feel the air on my face. This morning, by contrast, I had to encase myself in a hat and scarf and boots and the kind of thick padded coat that makes me resemble the Michelin Man in order simply to exit my home. Outside, there was somehow both snow and mud, which my dog tracked onto the rug. March is thankless. It’s enough to make you rage.  It’s not a coincidence that Julius Caesar was assassinated during the month of March. This is a season of betrayal. In February, it’s easy to armor yourself against the hostilities of the world—but March coaxes away your defenses, and then you find a dagger between your ribs. Perhaps, though, you’re holding out for the cherry blossoms. You might feel that their emergence will make up for days like today. And yes, they’re nice, they’re pretty, they’re an economic boon to the region, and I’m sure I’ve sent a postcard of them before. I like seeing a flowering tree from the windows of the bus. But I do not want to sit shivering by the river, drinking a Sakura matcha and gawking at blossoms. Whatever pleasure that may bring could not even remotely redeem the nastiness of March. The most sadistic part of the month, in my opinion, has not yet arrived. It will soon. Prepare yourselves. Already, your weather app is making promises: Not too far in the future, there’s a day that will be 74 degrees. It’s got that little gold sun icon that peeks out from a perfect white cloud. That date will become totemic. You’ll make all kinds of plans. On days like those, I like to scrounge up a t-shirt from the back of my closet—maybe even risk a pair of shorts—and clamber up the steps to my roof where I aspire to sit on a chair and close my eyes while the sunlight glows behind my eyelids and I feel my skin grow warm.  But inevitably, I get up to the roof and there’s a cold breeze blowing across the Potomac and the sky is mottled with clouds and each time one migrates across the sun the temperature drops a trillion degrees and I suddenly need sweatpants and a hoodie but—swindled by the optimism of springtime—I haven’t brought them, so I hug my knees to my chest and brace my face against the cold and squint up at the sky to see how fast the clouds are moving and how many appear to be queued up behind this one, each of them perfectly positioned to blot out the sun, and then just as I’ve decided to give up and return indoors, the sun once again emerges—radiant and benevolent—and I stretch out like a lizard for approximately 45 seconds before another cloud takes it away. For an hour, I sit there, hoping that the conditions will change. But they don’t. It only gets worse as the afternoon drags on. When I finally give up, I sit inside and look out the window, unable to shake the feeling that I am wasting something precious while knowing, objectively, that the weather is simply too cold to enjoy.  March is perpetual heartbreak. I know this. That’s always how it is. Still, each year, I fail to protect myself. I check the weather every day—often multiple times a day—watching the little numbers scramble up and down, feeling helpless and battered by fate. It’s a wrenching month, a mercurial month, one that leaves me with a wardrobe almost as discombobulated as my mind. I can only comfort myself with the understanding that April will be marginally better, and that we’ll really be cooking in May.The post March Is the Worst Month first appeared on Washingtonian. ...read more read less