Seasons

It's a snow-globe out there right now. I was going to do my errands in town this morning before it was supposed to start, but my 15% chance of snow flurries just turned into 100% reality.

I'm astonished to discover that after 16 years in the Adirondacks, snow still surprises me, even in January. Growing up in Southern California gave me a particularly warped view of what weather was all about on the rest of the planet. As a child, sayings like "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb," and "April showers bring May flowers," made no sense at all in a place that was generally 70 degrees and sunshine year round.

In my world there, January was generally sunny and cool, June was overcast and foggy, October was hot and smoky (late-summer fires are a normal part of the eco-system). And sometimes, the Santa Ana winds would blow in from the desert and I'd be shopping for Christmas trees in 90+ degree weather, or swimming in February.

One of my earliest memories as a child is of making a calendar in Sunday School. The idea was to paste square stickers of the months around the perimeter of a clock-face, grouping the winter months on top arc, the summer on the bottom, spring on the left and fall on the right. Because I had no concept of months of snow, or leaves falling off deciduous trees, I just stuck all the stickers in random places--it was all the same weather, as far as I could see. One of the more patient ladies must have explained the sequence to me, because I was given a new sheet and eventually got it right. To this day, whenever I think of a year as a whole, trying to plan things out, I see a version of that graphic calendar in my mind--January in the top left, September on the bottom right. Tennessee is just about right, very much like that calendar, with about 3 months each of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

It's easing off now, and the sky is lightening up. This weather front is moving on to the east. This little reminder that it is indeed winter gives me a structure and rhythm that is reassuring.