Dusk Through Narrow Streets

Spring here isn’t like spring everywhere else–around when other parts of the US are seeing the snow melt, we’re hitting breakup, and when my friend in Pennsylvania is talking about warm weather edging into the 70s and 80s, I’m thrilled to get a blue-sky day in the 40s.

Yeah, you’re all laughing at me now. This is spring in Anchorage: generally speaking, I’d say the latter half of March and first half of April tend to be breakup, which…I’m not sure if I’d define breakup as a fifth season, or a subseason of winter and spring, or what, but it’s a very common term here, and it’s that period between genuine winter, when it’s cold and snow covers everything, and genuine spring, when the vast majority of the snow has melted, the roads are dry, and the grass…well, the grass and trees aren’t green again, but they’re getting there. Breakup is the between-time, when all the ice breaks up (get it now?)  and the temperature settles above freezing and the snow starts to melt.

And it’s disgusting. Do not ever visit Alaska during that time of year. You won’t want to come back. Half the streets are flooded with giant dirty puddles, and the rest are covered in brown slush and mud. It’s too warm for winter boots but too dirty for normal shoes, and unless your shoes are waterproof (none of mine are), you’re pretty much guaranteed to get your feet soaked just walking to class. (Granted, that was true on all the rainy days in Norwich too.) Parking lots turn into giant muddy, slushy messes, some nearly impossible to drive in because the ice and hard-packed snow built up all winter melts unevenly. Park in a bad place and you’ll step into an ankle-deep, ice-cold puddle that probably surrounds your entire car.

If you couldn’t figure it out by now, breakup is one of my least favorite times of year.

Sometime around last week, though, I’d say we finally transitioned into spring. Everything’s still kind of dirty–during the winter, dirt is spread on the streets for traction, so when the snow melts, the dirt stays–and we haven’t had any rain, so there’s still a lot of dust and ash, and of course the melting snow reveals just how much litter everyone chucked out their car windows over the winter. Streetsweeper trucks sort of clean the dirt off the streets, although then it just gets in the grass and kind of stays there, so…I don’t know how helpful that is. But the vast majority of the snow is gone, and–this is the real mark of spring beginning for my purposes–almost all the roads, sidewalks, and various paths at UAA are clean and dry. Seriously, when breakup finally starts to leave because there’s not much left to melt, the most beautiful thing in the world is clean, dry pavement, and while I’m getting my feet soaked trying to get to my next class because everything is wet and slushy, I tend to think pretty longingly about places like Florida with sunbaked pavement that’s cracked from the heat, not potholed from freeze-thaw cycles.

Not very romantic, is it? But for me, spring means dry pavement. The first beautiful spring day meant clear skies, sun, temperatures above 40°, and the ability to walk outside without looking like a loon because I’m gingerly stepping from semi-dry spot to semi-dry spot. I wore my Converses outside again for the first time last week because they’re even less waterproof than my other shoes, which was kind of awesome.

Now I just need to get the studded tires taken off my car, and won’t that be fun…

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