It’s always a shock to the system. Leave the state for a handful of days in March and return to a very different place. Cool and glorious one minute, hot and yellow the next. Oh yeah, I live in Florida! Spring = heat + pollen.
I wasn’t gone that long. Just a few days in New York for a conference. New York, where there was still snow on the ground. Where the temperatures dipped down to freezing at night. Where the color scheme consisted of gray, light gray and winter sludge — a combination of ice, gravel and 3-day-old pizza crust. Where the only REAL color was when the tip of my nose turned Rudolph red. Pollen is just a dream in New York, no matter how much the store displays with phony flowers and pastel-y prints try to convince you it’s spring. No, not yet. New York is still an atrocious shade of winter sludge — like living in a black and white film.
But not Florida. I was only gone a couple of days, yet stepping off the plane I realized how much I take Florida’s lush green landscape for granted. AND … how I forgot about March’s pollen assault. How everything turns Tweety Bird yellow and it feels like there are sandspurs in your lungs.
We Floridians know just how to deal with pollen season, don’t we? If you’re not familiar, here are a few tips:
• Wash your car. Because there’s nothing more wonderfully futile then deciding to clean the 2-inch thick crust of pollen off your auto, feeling satisfied with your spotless vehicle, and then watching as two new inches of pollen collect right in front of your eyes. The same goes for sweeping your porch.
• Sleep with the windows open. It’s about the only time of the year you can comfortably do it in Florida. You will have the most wonderful night breathing in the spring breezes. And you will wake up in a pollen mound not unlike being buried in sand at the beach.
• Wear a military-grade gas mask. No one will even bat an eye.
• Embrace your knew look. You know, the allergic reaction look. It’s very fashionable. The swollen, red bags under your eyes. The Niagara Falls-like runny nose. The violent sneezing fits and hacking cough, punctuated by clouds of yellow “smoke” erupting from your lungs. We all look slightly jaundiced thanks to the pollen. So just roll with it.
• Remember that it could be worse. You could be living in a land of winter sludge, contemplating which gray coat to put on, and dreaming about a land that stays green all year … except for those couple of weeks when it mysteriously changes to yellow.