Seasons

Spring and its rowdy successor, Summer, are threatening to catch and overtake me again.  At this stage of my life, I can’t relate to all the bursting forth, all the fecundity, all the “here-today-gone-tomorrow-ness” of the seasons of light and life.  By the time I’m thinking about strawberries, the apples are ripening.  As I begin to lose myself in the beauty of irises, they brown and fade in favor of daylilies, which then disappear before I have turned my eyes fully in their direction.  The sweet scent of the honeysuckle vine tickles my nose for a few seconds and fades, long before I’ve had my fill of it.  Things simply move too fast this time of year, and with each passing year I find myself less able to keep up.

And so I have begun to resent Spring, as I would resent a friend who has moved on and left me behind.  I have no love, these days, for people and things that move too fast, and can’t wait for me to catch up.  An amazing admission from one who has characteristically lived out her life a half-step ahead of, and so, out of sync with, everyone else.  Not a place where I ever thought to be…but so it is.

The lengthening of the days and the leafing of the trees only cause me to pine for the slanting light of Fall, its smoky air and blazing colors.   And then the dignified stillness of Winter…which is not still at all, but is itself bursting with life…but life that is not hidden from me behind heavy veils of green leaves and long grasses, not to mention crowds of fair-weather-loving human beings.

Winter is a season that waits for me.   If I miss something, it gives me multiple opportunities to experience it again.  It pauses long enough for me to see, and watch, and absorb.  It is the friend of my old age. 

But, today…I’ll strive not to give in to my homesickness for Winter, so that I don’t completely miss the joy of Spring and Summer—even if that joy be more a memory of seasons past than of the warm green that slides too quickly through my crooked, work-worn fingers.