The tide rises fast at Reid State Park. From Griffith Head the beach drops off sharply into the sea, and waves that have traveled an entire ocean to get to this windswept place crash and froth along the shore. March is the month when Mainers remember what it’s like to stroll across the sand. On bright afternoons, when the temperature climbs into the balmy forties, the lighthouse at the Cuckolds beckons from across the wide mouth of the Sheepscot and Damariscove is a distant, blurry line drawn across the shimmering surface of the water. On these days, summer is no longer some vague memory — a half-recollected vision of beach blankets and screaming children — but sharpens into focus as a real, impending season. We’ve made it through another winter, we tell ourselves, and the sun is returning to its rightful place above our heads. Walking the beach at Reid, even with its lingering patches of snow, becomes an act of hope.

But March, we all know, is a trickster. No sooner have we convinced ourselves that warmer times are just around the corner, than the clouds descend and the sky starts to spit. A chill breeze rises off the frosted flats and we are driven, shivering, back up the dunes and into the warmth of our waiting cars.

“Sorry, folks,” Old Man Winter tells us, “But you’ll just have to wait.”