I understood a new meaning for the T.S. Eliot quote “April is the cruelest month” when I moved to Chicago from Oakland at the end of March. In California, April means a tranquil ease out of mild, wet winter into the sunny perfection of spring to review your ennui at liesure. April in Chicago, however, was all violent contrasts, tantalizing then punishing.

At first bitter cold, then brilliant and warm, then the sun shut off for a blast of winter. Snow, slushy at first, then sticking overnight. The next day, the sun was out again, slicing the snow off rooftops like a laser. It sounded almost like pouring rain, so much water dripping from trees and off gutters and down walls and into the wet ground and slapping the cement.

Then — clear, cool and bright, with a wind that whipped into your face, chilled you and cut into your clothes, just like the most common variety of unpleasant weather in the Bay Area. This didn’t stick around long, however, because temperatures dipped, and it rained heavily, making it strictly indoor weather again. Discovering pools I had to walk through to get in and out of the laundry basement in the new place I was renting, I realized my new city would require a pair of rubber boots. In California, you can garden in your sandals.

A dream day followed after the rain cleared, lucky for us coinciding with an already-planned trip to Lake Michigan. You couldn’t ask for nicer weather, and I saw further out on that long blue mirror than I had before, miles and miles before it dissolved into a pale haze.

What else would follow as the week began? Thunder and lightning, and warm, tropical rain, to stand on the back porch and enjoy from under cover.

When spring rioted forward after this giant dump of water followed by brilliant sun — skeletal trees now suddenly studded with green gems; pollen in the air so thick I spent the mornings sneezing; the El train sparkling over the rain-scrubbed city, reflcted in the lake-like puddles left behind — I was sure that April was done playing with me. It was, after all, almost May. I confidently made weekend plans, started looking at cheap inflatable kayaks, visualizing river trips by thriving marshes and photogenic industrial ruins.

I’m still not sure if it was a special alert on my phone, but I noticed a sound I usually don’t and saw a “spring storm alert” from the Chicago Tribune. Inches of snow were predicted to land Saturday, carried by high-speed winds across the north of the country — from the Rockies through the Dakotas and Nebraska, on to the Great Lakes, where it was predicted to hit Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Millions of people, in Madison, Milwaukee, Des Moines, Omaha, as well as Chicago, were going to see their thermometers drop like they’d been put into a freezer.

It was still hard to believe on Friday, wearing a t-shirt as I did housework with the back door open and the glass in the storm door raised to let the breeze come in. As I drove across the West Side in search of lunch after buying a new drill, I savored the sunlight, then savored it more sitting in the small backyard sipping a cold Topo Chico.

My daughter had been fighting off a flu which again got worse; my wife started feeling ill as well, and a gloom set into the apartment as the temperatures dropped in the afternoon and evening. We woke up to a flurry of snow.

The next day passed indoors, lighting candles and reading and watching movies. As it happened, with my family feeling poorly, the late winter weather was a relief; rather than have a sunny day spoiled, it felt great to be inside. Most days I’d rather be indoors anyway: and though I love the outdoors and especially the wilderness of the West, my idea of a perfect day revolves around subway rides and restaurant meals, coffee, bookstores, neighborhood walks, conversations with friends, live music at a comfortable nightclub.

The family felt well enough for friends to come over, and we ordered pizza and I made a ragu that steamed up the kitchen. We dimmed the lights and I put on Adan Jodorowsky to listen to as we ate, lit even more candles. Our friends arrived and snow swirled in every direction by the streetlamps visible through the living room windows.

Tomorrow, I knew it would be sunny again, and again I’d hear the water sluicing out of the rain gutters, watch it melting off the rooftops. Really, I thought as I ate my pasta, this is not so bad.