Seasons Change

When I woke up this morning, it was gray, chilly, and rainy, the way fall is supposed to be.  For the past several days, it’s instead been warm, which is fine in September or maybe even early October, but not at the beginning of November.  It just feels wrong.  So today, as much as the weather was less pleasant than yesterday’s, I felt a little more comfortable with the world.

As I stood in the kitchen looking out at our back yard and contemplating the week ahead, the rain suddenly shifted to what we call a “wintry mix”—rain, snow, and ice pellets all mixed up.  It literally went from one to the other in the space of ten seconds.  Now, an hour later, it’s snowing.  The ground’s still warm enough that it’s mostly melting upon landing, except for the few lucky flakes that manage to cling to the tops of grass blades and give the lawns a pale frosted look.

I dislike it when writers use weather and seasons as a metaphor for their internal states; it’s a cheap device and a rather tired cliché to boot.  So I won’t actually do it here, but instead allude to the fact that I could have very easily done so, if it weren’t for my pride.

This week we have the American holiday of Thanksgiving, and possibly not a moment too soon.  Kat and I have suffered a great deal in the past year, and it’s easy to become a tragedy diva in such circumstances, focusing on and complaining about everything that’s wrong and terrible in one’s life.  This week we need to dedicate some energy to remembering the good and positive things that happened in the past year, and give thanks for every one; to remind ourselves that life, no matter how hard it seems, is not uniformly dark and painful; to celebrate the good instead of dwelling on the bad.  In that way, we can together light a candle rather than curse the darkness, and use that light as a guide toward happier days.

• Seasons Change was published on Monday, November 24th, 2003.
• It was assigned to the Personal category.
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