The Transitional Seasons

Piker Press just published a story of mine, a decidedly springtime one. It didn’t feel at all strange to have it come out as the days are getting shorter, however; spring has more in common with autumn than with her neighbors. Lazy, shimmering, devil-may-care summer is too self-absorbed, while brooding, fierce winter will not contemplate another’s voice.

Spring and autumn are the seasons of change, when we feel the passing of time. It makes perfect sense to me that spring and autumn are the times when new fashion lines are revealed, summer and winter are when one coasts along, enjoying or enduring according to personal preference. Excitement comes with uncertainty and change, with the realization that today will not be a repeat of yesterday.

Spring is often compared to birth, and of course Halloween could not come at any other time of year. Autumn is spookier than winter, even though winter is darker. There is a restlessness to the season; leaves skitter and twirl aimlessly on city sidewalks and in fields harvested and prepared against the coming cold. There is anticipation in the air, the certaintly that something is coming, but there’s no telling when it will arrive. It’s the same feeling that horror films so often fail to achieve.

They are the seasons of scent. In autumn there is the smell of decay in the air, leaves piling up, but it is not death, it is autumn passing a note to spring, right under winter’s nose, the down-payment on spring’s vitality. In return spring fills the air with the scent of flowers and the songs of birds — dialogues of reproduction, as spring creates sprawling vibrant life poised and ready to take all the energy it can from summer’s plenty, the return message to her friend on the other side of the sun. They are in cahoots, spring and autumn, giddy seasons sharing the joke that is life, while summer and winter are none the wiser.

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5 thoughts on “The Transitional Seasons

  1. gizo –

    I’ve always assumed I knew the answer to this, but suddenly I find myself doubting my own “up over” assumptions. Where you live, is it summer in January or is it warm in the winter? I suspect the latter but hope for the former. Winter was invented long before the calendar.

  2. If one may infer that gizo lives down under, then I believe he is our new MOH, as visitor 53,003 was from Austrailia and came directly to the blog without searching for either eggs or dingos.

  3. For everything there is a season, and ’tis the season for a new poll. Or at least change the season in the first poll option.
    Don’t mean to be stepping on your MOH toes, gizo: you were probably already on this, right?

  4. I must shamefully admit that I have not taken too much notice of MOH’ness at the present. It is spring after all, and there is too much new growth in the garden for me to worry about these things.
    Our days are getting longer, and warmer. The cherry and apricot have bloomed, and are now setting fruitlets, while the blackbirds court and nest all around our house.
    Jerry, our seasons are the reverse of the North, it will be a stinking hot summer in January, and it will last for some time. There are a few opinions around that suggest we have 6 seasons down here, comprised of the standard 4, High Summer, and one other. I imagine my winter was warmer than yours will be, but that may have more to do with lines of longitude than anything else…
    I like this piece you have written, I shall think of it as I sip Gin&Tonic in the afternoon sun.

    As for being an MOH, I am happy to oblige, if someone could just explain what cerebral duties (or otherwise) I am required to perform. (also, do I get a t-shirt?)

  5. The millennial office holder has no clearly-defined responsibilities except to badger subsequent MOH’s for not getting anything done. There is a little space in the sidebar in which the MOH can (but rarely does) place whatever they like; in the past that has generally been a photo but it is certainly not limited to that. Perhaps a snatch of springtime doggerel will warm our northern hearts. It’s your call.

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