It was cheap. But not tawdry. In fact, it was sensible – darn near incapable of raising an eyebrow. Nothing flashy, no fringe, no tassels, no Sergeant Pepper-style buttons. No extra pockets. As garments go, it was the Toyota Camry of jackets.

So I bought it, at the mall, from a large chain store that rhymes with “American Beagle Trout Sitter.” It cost me about five dollars. This was close to eight years ago, and that five-dollar jacket is still with me. I wear it for about two months a year, 30 days in October/November and 30 days in March/April, when Wisconsin’s weather achieves an equilibrium with the jacket’s ability to keep warm my (fantastic) upper body. It is my fall jacket. It is my spring jacket. It is 100% cotton, the fabric of our lives, and it is greenish.

It’s also a little too big for me, but hey – five dollars.

The jacket’s been hovering around the periphery of my life for a few weeks now. There were a few days in late February where it was warm enough to wear the jacket on a trip to the store. Since then, it’s been hanging out on doorknobs and the chair near the front closet. Wishful thinking kept me from pulling it back onto a hanger. I wanted to keep it in a state of readiness, for when my winter coat was just too hot. And now ... its time seems to truly have come.

I’ve been rocking my nondescript, greenish, lightweight jacket for over a week now, and gods willing, I’ll be rocking it until the snow all turns to water and is reabsorbed by the earth.

For me, now is a time of mixed feelings. I like my jacket and I like the warm weather and I like walking on dry sidewalks. But there are clumps of mysterious crap appearing on the boulevards and there is mud to avoid. The remaining snow is grungy and full of pebbles. Everything is soggy.

    And there’s a special kind of cold surrounding us at night that’s almost worse than the bitter cold of full-on winter. Moisture from all that melting snow gets into the air, helping it to penetrate your skin, giving you a seemingly unshakeable shiver and chill. Blankets and sweaters and hot cups of coffee/tea/cocoa and terrible romantic comedies with microwave popcorn just can’t stop it. You keep checking the thermostat, but the room is just as warm as it’s always been. The cold is in you.

We’re smack dab in the middle of the grimy flux betwixt seasons, and I’m filled with one part sunny delight, one part agitated dismay. But thankfully, the change of seasons is always brief in Wisconsin, and soon, I’ll be all parts sunny delight.

What the hell am I talking about, again?

Oh yeah, I really like my spring jacket. And despite all the mess, I’m really liking spring itself. Yeah, it’s no autumn, but what is? So many people have been so pro-winter around here ... it seems almost traitorous to be happy about spring. Yet here I am, sitting next to a fireplace holding a crackling fire television playing Battlestar Galactica, wearing my silk smoking jacket plaid jammie pants, tipping a snifter of cognac can of Hamm’s to my lips, daydreaming about green grass and black dirt and the yellow sun.

I’m normally not a huge fan of spring. I always place it fourth in my ranking of the seasons. But just as the lost and forgotten mitten – soaked in dirty water and road salt – is slowly revealed by the retreating snow bank, so my affection for spring is also revealed (also soaked in soaked in dirty water and road salt).

I’m ready to forget about quiet winter nights, downhill sledding, and kick-ass snow forts. I’m ready to see some buds budding and some birds ... birding. I’m ready for a change.

All of this readiness I find hidden within the cheap lining of my plain old jacket. Yes, like a schmaltzy, over the top, eye-roll-inducing metaphor that I should be punched in the ear for using, that jacket is spring. And I’m gonna wear it, dammit.

You know ... unless it snows again.