The C Word - A conflict of seasons

A Conflict of Seasons

Growing up on the East Coast, the seasons were typically fairly delineated by what unfolded with nature.  Green grass and flowers in the spring, hotter weather in the summer, leaves changing colors and then falling in autumn, dead grass and snow covered lawns and streets plus cold in the winter months.

Here on the West Coast, things are a little less easy to tell.  We have more like three seasons rather than four and, even then, they are not always easy to figure out.

As I took a walk today, December 8, 2017… I marveled at the spring like flowers still blooming, the fall foliage of the trees and yet, some trees now naked having lost them to the ground already. The calendar says that we are at the end of “autumn” and headed into winter in just two weeks time.  You can tell that it’s winter by the Christmas decorations that have sprung up.  Here, in California, we get more creative with decorating.  Ornaments hanging from palm trees and fruit trees.  Some Christmas decorations still have a hint of fall with pumpkins still on porches.  Even at my house.  Yes, it’s confusing.  What season is it, exactly?

Our human lives also have “seasons”.  The Spring of our lives from birth to perhaps our twenties – when we are still exploring and learning so much about ourselves and others.  Our Summer months in our thirties and forties when we are still vibrant and alive and yet we are seasoned enough to make it through thetumultous years of teenage children and aging parents and all of the other complexities that heat up our lives.  We welcome Autumn in our fifties, sixties and maybe even seventies as we prepare to shed ourselves of our jobs and, in most cases, have let our children grow and go off on their own leaving us with less burdens than before.  Our Winter years are for sitting more often, or watching out the windows of our lives and enjoying the reward of a life well lived. 

We are conflicted – our minds tell us we are still twenty while our bodies often don’t lie about our age!  How we hate that!  George and I (and many of our friends), lament the fact that our minds tell us that we can still do all the physical things of our “spring” – yet attempts to do so often fall short – sometimes far short and remind us that it is autumn.  We don’t want to give up and give in to that – not yet anyway.  And so we fight body and mind, again and again.  We struggle with that.  George struggles with that even more since his body is determined to remind him daily that he is well into his Autumn years.  Winter will come in it’s due time.  Just..... not.... yet.... please.

Here are photos from a fall-nearly-winter-day in California:

Spring and summer (flowers):

Late summer and early fall – leaves changing colors:

Late fall – trees drop their leaves

Winter – Christmas arrives