The weather here has been turning quickly from hot hot summer to cold gray gross. I'm pretty okay with this because in a week or so I'm shipping out and getting a month or so of Indian summer followed by no winter.
I have been surrounded by extreme seasons my whole life. In Iowa the summer heat index (what it feels like when you add the humidity) can get up to 120 in a heat wave. In the winter the wind chill can rip over the plains at a deadly -60. New York is a more relaxed version of that but still very extreme. Both of these climates also see about two weeks of spring and two weeks of fall in a year.
I map my life by the seasons. I read fantasy only in the winter. I usually only run in the spring. I am the most social in the summer. I can't think of anything in my life that is fall based, but I'm sure there's something. What is going to come of my patterns when I leave the extreme seasons? Will I still have a winter weight gain? Will I still find myself in a period of shedding and renewal every April? Will I still experience seasonal depression? Will I still like reading in the colder months? Will my life continue on the same cycle?
Living in Iowa I never realized how guided by the seasons I was. In New York you are out in that season every moment. You trudge through the snow, you bake under the sun and there is no car to hide in either way. Without the refuge of a car I came to learn just how swayed I am by the cycle of the year.
When people ask me what my favorite season is I say 'the beginning of every new one'. I love the smell of the oncoming season. A fresh entrance into yet another summer or fall or winter or spring. I am fascinated to see what will come of me when I lose the snow, the sweltering heat, the perennial budding and the crunching leaves. Will I feel more lost or more balanced? We shall see!
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