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This becomes a day like any other that is somehow different in way you cannot put your finger on. The sun rises a bit later, the temperature is a bit warmer, the river lower, the trees still bare.
There's something about spring here in Athens specifically, even if you can't pinpoint the time. North of here the world is still caked in snow and ice, well below freezing. But in my world, it's sunny and nearly 75. It might not last. It's possible another snow storm is yet to come, but you have to cast your lot with some version of the future.
The future starts to feel possible again. Little things. The air feels brighter. People pull out less practical footwear. It's still early enough that the mornings are crisp and the pollen hasn't started.
And then the pollen does start. Great lime green clouds of oak pollen and tk join the gymnosperms contributions to the point that even I, with no allergies at all, end up with runny eyes and burning lungs. It's awful for a week to ten days. Then the catkins fall in great heaps that mat in the tk, choke the gutters and require a rake to get out of the yard.
Then it stops and you know summer heat is only a week or two away. This is how it goes around here, year after year. It typically starts a bit before calendar spring. I'm not good with dates though. And ever since they moved daylight savings time back the world has felt a bit off to me.
Dates aren't a particularly good way to track time anyway. Spring comes when it comes.
There is the spring equinox though (vernal if you're feeling fancy). The plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun with admirable regularity. If you whip out your stopwatch you'd know that the length of day and night aren't *exactly* the same, but then if you're the sort to whip out a stopwatch probably no one is going to invite your to their equinox party anyway. It's close enough. It's something to mark.
One of the unfortunate side effects of not being religious or subscribing to any particular religion is that you have little to mark. Without religion you miss out on two major, and very concrete, things religion provides[^1] -- community and festivals.
One of the wonderful things about the Internet though is that it makes communities possible that would otherwise not be possible. No church to attend every Sunday with the same people? No problem just start a Facebook group. It'd be a whole lot better if Facebook wasn't the mediator of anyone's community, but for now that's where the people are so that's where the communities are.
Which is the world's longest intro to we went to an equinox party and easter egg hunt with a bunch of fellow secularists. And it was great. There was even old school climbing equipment of the sort children could take real risks on. I'd like to attribute that to the lack of religion present, but that would be stretching it.
It's lately how I mark the passing of seasons. In autumn and winter, more hair. In spring and summer, less. It's a small thing. Like falling leaves or opening buds. It's what I do anyway.
[^1]: Religion provides a lot more than that naturally, most of the rest of it not-so-good, particularly with the sun god religions and their obsession with power and control, but I'll stick with the positive here.
Not that there's anything wrong with self-delusion necessarily. Usually there is actually, but as Terence McKenna [wrote](https://www.erowid.org/culture/characters/mckenna_terence/mckenna_terence_tryptamines_consciousness.shtml), "people have been talking to gods and demons for far more of human history than they have not." Religion If it gets you through the day a happier person -- and you don't feel the need to convince everyone else to share your delusion -- so be it.
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