It’s that joyful time of year again. A time when winter-traumatized Rhode Islanders can begin to put the snow shovel back in its spot amidst the clutter in the back of the garage, and hang the winter coats up deep inside closets for their long-awaited hibernation period. A time to breathe in the fresh spring air and dream of warm, livable days spent outside for months to come.

The spring season is one of rebirth and renewal, where flower stems peak up from the soil and the thought of a morning spent walking the dog generates far less feelings of animosity towards our furry friends.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows this time of year. Spring is notoriously the season of the pothole in Rhode Island, after the fluctuations in freezing and non-freezing temperatures has wreaked havoc on the asphalt for a full five months or so. We’ve no doubt that plenty of readers have already had a nail biting moment where you notice one of those road craters just a split second too late, followed by a bracing for impact and a quick prayer that you haven’t popped a tire or cracked an axle.

This spring we should all be thankful that our tax dollars go towards public works departments to fix the roads, even if it never seems to happen as fast as we would like. Imagine a world where such work was solely privatized, and your ability to pay for such remediations dictated whether or not a pothole on your street got filled. Despite all the grumblings, we are fortunate to live in municipalities where traversable roads are a part of the deal of living in them.

Additionally we are fortunate that this spring, compared to the past two, seems to be shaping up into one where we can turn down the thermostat on Covid fears a notch or two. With so many Rhode Islanders vaccinated and boosted, and with the warm weather bringing an end to the worst of the seasonal sick season, our learned measures of hand sanitizing and avoiding overly-crowded spaces should help steer us away from unexpected spikes and further disruptions to business and life — knock on wood, of course.

We should count these blessings and our other good fortunes particularly during this season, not only for getting through another winter of the pandemic, but for being residents of a country where we are safe from foreign aggression and the horror of war on our doorstep. If you have the means to support any Ukrainian aid organizations, now would be the time to open your checkbook and your heart to support those going through something unimaginable at the moment — something far beyond the annoyance of blowing a tire on a pothole.