Today is the first day of the rest of February.

It was 30 degrees Fahrenheit for my morning stroll out the back door into the alley, down to the coffeeshop, and on the few blocks to the Columbia Heights metro station. Thirty degrees, under many circumstances, is unpleasantly cold, but mornings of late have been affairs in the teens, where brisk winds draw tears from one's eyes that freeze before they hit the ground. You can understand, then, when I say that a sunny 30 degrees felt like spring.

Premature as it might be, a winter morning that feels like spring is a great thing. People are out. It's warm enough for construction to resume on the lofts going up at the end of my street. It's warm enough that birds can sing without pausing to swear at the cold. It's warm enough that you can smell the city. When it's cold, all you can smell is cold. All it takes for life to resume in February is a 30 degree day.

Basking in the almost-above-freezing warmth of the morning, I find myself thinking spring thoughts. I find myself noting that nothing in the world is as great as being up early on a spring morning when you don't have to go to work. I am, in fact, going to work, but this dampens my spirits only a little. I think of recent spring trips to Italy, sitting under cedars drinking coffee on cool mornings that lead to warm, sun-drenched afternoons, sea air carrying salt spray and the heavy smells of newly opened flora into the shade where I sit with a crossword and a glass of wine. I'm drunk on these thoughts, this 30 degree morning, and I slip on ice into traffic. Honked at, I near the metro, toss my empty coffee cup into a nearby bin, and descend to the platform, where none of us can decide whether to leave our coats on or take them off.

Back at street level, the trickle of water in the gutter makes people grin, even these hardened K Street office grunts. The 30 degree warmth thickens the air the slightest bit, giving the smallest shimmer to the tail lights backed up on Connecticut, and carrying the smells and sounds of Dupont to Farragut Square, and vice versa. Warm air holds more life, I discover, and we all feel a little more alive stumbling and slushing our way to the office this morning. We push and swear a little more, we linger smoking outside the revolving doors of one firm or another, we talk, where before we ran bent over, eyes streaming, for the nearest HVAC unit.

Inside there's no difference this morning. The constant glacial pressure of work drains moods all year long. Amid the buzz of phones ringing, copiers copying, staplers stapling, fingers typing, coffee dripping, files shredding, and bodies humming around on the paths that divide the cubicles from the edge offices, I sit, quiet. And I'm back under those cedars, watching the sun creep up the rain smoothed Roman busts of my balcony, smile as big as the North Atlantic, all thanks to the unseasonable warmth of a 30 degree Wednesday morning.