March 21st
Here is something I never thought I'd say: I miss summer.
Every year up until now I've been quite content being in winter and loathing summer. Seeing the sun set closer and closer to the south every night, a fanfare to the shortening days and blossoming cold. I used to run down to the local shop in only a T-shirt and jeans when it rained in one of the colder months to buy some totally unneeded thing just so I could go out in the rain. The cold never seemed to effect me. I used to sleep with my window open well into November, only closing it when one or both parents started moaning about something called central heating, a term I wasn't quite familiar with then. I had a skin of asbestos. And while the season was being taken for granted, the setting sun would sneakily creep north along the horizon, telling the tales of long, hot, sticky, drawn out days to come. I hated it. I wished it wouldn't happen.
But this year it was different.
The excitement of the shortening days was there at the beginning, how the sun would have set before I got home from school, and the cool gentle winds blowing away the last traces of summer. The scenes of pristine snow under cloudless skies, or twinkling frost meandering around leafless trees filled my mind greedily.
But in a day I got older, the childhood ability to ignore or even enjoy the cold deserted me. Everything in winter got colder and harsher. The winds sliced through any clothing, sleeves became wind tunnels to send chilling air swirling around my belly. The frost encircled the skeleton trees to bite any exposed skin. The snow, never came. The cloud filled skies turned everything shades of grey, depressing the landscape and me along with it. My hands turning unhealthy shades of purple and orange. I feel tired and hungry all the time.
I now look forward to those summer days. Those early quiet mornings, the bright light and the long shadows. The long warm summer nights where the sky is a unique random painting of cloud and setting colours, reflected yellow on a background of blue-green-orange-yellow-red all the way to the sunkissed horizon. The life in the land around me and the life in me.
March 21st, the last day of winter.
Every year up until now I've been quite content being in winter and loathing summer. Seeing the sun set closer and closer to the south every night, a fanfare to the shortening days and blossoming cold. I used to run down to the local shop in only a T-shirt and jeans when it rained in one of the colder months to buy some totally unneeded thing just so I could go out in the rain. The cold never seemed to effect me. I used to sleep with my window open well into November, only closing it when one or both parents started moaning about something called central heating, a term I wasn't quite familiar with then. I had a skin of asbestos. And while the season was being taken for granted, the setting sun would sneakily creep north along the horizon, telling the tales of long, hot, sticky, drawn out days to come. I hated it. I wished it wouldn't happen.
But this year it was different.
The excitement of the shortening days was there at the beginning, how the sun would have set before I got home from school, and the cool gentle winds blowing away the last traces of summer. The scenes of pristine snow under cloudless skies, or twinkling frost meandering around leafless trees filled my mind greedily.
But in a day I got older, the childhood ability to ignore or even enjoy the cold deserted me. Everything in winter got colder and harsher. The winds sliced through any clothing, sleeves became wind tunnels to send chilling air swirling around my belly. The frost encircled the skeleton trees to bite any exposed skin. The snow, never came. The cloud filled skies turned everything shades of grey, depressing the landscape and me along with it. My hands turning unhealthy shades of purple and orange. I feel tired and hungry all the time.
I now look forward to those summer days. Those early quiet mornings, the bright light and the long shadows. The long warm summer nights where the sky is a unique random painting of cloud and setting colours, reflected yellow on a background of blue-green-orange-yellow-red all the way to the sunkissed horizon. The life in the land around me and the life in me.
March 21st, the last day of winter.
