March has its moniker, coming in like a lamb and out like a lion or vice versa depending on the vagaries of Mother Nature. Poor April has been saddled with being “the cruelest month” ever since Eliot penned The Waste Land and laid claim to the melancholy of seasonal ennui. Many years the Vineyard marches in step with this sentiment, but this year has been particularly vigorous in embracing the cruelty of a New England spring.

But should we be surprised? After all, there are those who chart the course of a New England calendar by listing January, February, March, March, March, June.

But enough said about the past few months as temperatures hit sixty this past week and May waves to us from around the next bend. May flowers punctuate this month, so they say, but perhaps a more apt image for Islanders is that of a turtle finally peeking its head out from beneath a hard shell.

Slowly, very slowly the Island turns its attention to greener pastures, busier streets and the more lucrative rainfall of summer incomes. The stage may still feel rather bare, but backstage is busy as one store after another opens yet again. Ferries arrive more or less on schedule these days, more amply loaded with the familiar yet absent faces of seasonal residents who drive slowly along the roads marveling at all the downed trees, while shivering beneath their tanned skin.

May Day is Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo a week away and Mother’s Day two weeks hence. But the big ticket lies in wait a mere four weeks away from today: the start of Memorial Day weekend. Just the sight of those three words sets the heart and mind spinning. The shift is abrupt, from off-season to in-season, a G-force acceleration that catches one by surprise every year.

The turtle ponders ducking back into its shell, but just for a moment.

Yes traffic looms, on the roads, in the grocery stores and ferry lines, but just as autumn brings a sigh of relief after a hectic August, so too does May after a gray and lonely spring.

Seasonal and summer friends trickle in and soon so will sunsets shared at the beach. The privet hedges will leaf, cloaking houses and backyards, and the smell of honeysuckle and backyard barbecues will take center stage.

So too will the sounds of children released from the confines of school, now turning to the informal education of backyard tag and hide and seek. Evening curfews will be tested and retested, as will racquets, snorkels, sails and surfboards just like they are every year. The only catch is that everyone will be one year older, a mountain of time for the young and very young, a blink for everyone else.

But it all begins with May, when preparations take shape and schedules solidify, shifting from being written in pencil to pen. Take a deep breath and look around because soon enough you won’t have time — and for a few months that will feel just right.