Beware the ughs of March

Ah, March. March in Maine. What can we say?

It’s Maine’s worst month. No “arguably” about it. It just is.

Winter is not over. Sure, sure spring starts in March. But it really doesn’t, if you know what I mean.

First of all, we lose that hour. I’m still a little cranky from springing forward, and plan to be for weeks. I know the whole country (almost) does the same, but we live in the easternmost state, so we don’t gain as much light, and the mornings are dark and cold.

As I write this, we’re bracing for a mid-week storm that’s being touted as “possibly the worst of the winter.” Can we just get this over with?

I once worked with a young reporter from Seattle. Around this time of year he asked a colleague and I when it “was going to start getting warm. Soon, right?” We just looked at each other and laughed. It was in New Hampshire, but same difference, as we say in Maine.

His protests that “spring was coming” just made us laugh harder.

March.

It’s the month that, yeah we may write about it in our mysteries, but not the one readers remember no matter how hard we try to make it real. Because it’s just so… so… well, you know.

But you know what? Just the nature of March means it’s my obligation to say something nice about it. I couldn’t.

I went to the deck at my office to take a photo to show just how crummy March is and came back with this one.

Yeah, okay. That looks kind of nice. Really pretty actually. If someone from away saw it, they’d think I was full of crap.

So I went back into my photo libraries trying to find a photo I’d taken that shows, really, how awful March is.

Here’s the first one that came up. I think I took this at Owl’s Head in March 2011.

Dammit! That is NOT proving my point.

Here’s another try.

Okay. That doesn’t prove my point either, but it doesn’t really count because I took it while I was snowshoeing, which is always nice and scenic.

How about one just from me and my mom walking around our neighborhood last week?

Okay, that doesn’t count either, because they live in a nice neighborhood.

I know! I remember one from the first day of spring I took a couple years ago in Belgrade.

Yeah, I know. It’s pretty. Not horrible at all.

I give up. I can’t prove March is the worst month. In fact, those photos make it look pretty nice in a lot of ways.

You’ll just have to take my word for it.

Maureen Milliken is the author of the Bernie O’Dea mystery series. Follow her on Twitter at@mmilliken47 and like her Facebook page at Maureen Milliken mysteries. Sign up for email updates at maureenmilliken.com. She hosts the podcast Crime&Stuff with her sister Rebecca Milliken.