Seasons

In an idle but interesting conversation the other day with the OM and Anders, we were pondering which, if any, season we like best. The conclusion I reached was that in sooth I enjoy them all, but what I really like best is the sensation of their changing. To my perception, there's a difference in the air, sometimes subtle, sometimes more distinct, that announces itself as not just another fall/summer/spring/winter day. I find these assorted environmental whispers and declarations of change exciting.

It might be that even though the temperature and degree of cloud cover is similar to the day before, the air has a peculiar sort of briskness to it that announces: fall. Or, it might be that one day it suddenly hits me that the daylight is sticking around for a lot longer that it had been of late, and that communicates to me: summer (or, alternatively, that it's suddenly apparent that the light isn't, broadcasting: winter). Or, that the rain, as ever present as it had been on consecutive winter days, seems to possess a degree of gentleness and the scent of the earth emits a burgeoning potential that signals: spring.

It's kind of interesting. I know that there's a lot of noise made about the equinoxes and solstices and about how these astronomical alignments analytically define the first day of fall or summer or whatever. But in the fullness of my astronomy geekdom, I put little stock in that. At best, these points in the Earth's orbit around the sun mark the relative number of daylight to nighttime hours, but that's about it. To my mind, the seasons come with a change in the sorts of activities they sponsor or afford. And it's interesting, to me at least, to reflect on different places I've lived and what those affordances are and how the environment has signaled to me their statuses changing.

I've got Chicago on the mind now, and it's setup there of having, say, 9 months of winter immediately followed by 3 months of summer. Or something like that. I remember, after my first runthrough of the Windy City's seasons, how it was to my mind that right around Labor Day the temperatures would drop on friggin' dime, and it wasn't a "oh, this is just a chilly day, the temperatures will pick back up" kind of drop. I made that mistake in interpretation my first year, and spent several months of going "what the fuck? What the Fuck?!" No. Chicago's hit-you-upside-the-head drop in temperature broadcasts: "break out the waterproofing for your shoes and the tubs of winter clothes, because now I'm going to kick your ass and make you wonder how you manage to say alive. Now." It's a peculiar sort of overwhelmingness and sense of inevitability - that everything is about to Massively Change, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Except gird your loins and waterproof your shoes.

In the Bay Area here, the change in seasons is more of the subtle variety. As with Chicago, there seem to basically be two, where here they are (1) persistently cloudy and often rainy, and (2) sunny and warm(er) with the occasional hot. And these of course do not neatly overlap with an ordinary sense of "winter" and "summer," for as those who live here or have visited know, while the rest of the northern hemisphere is enjoying their summer, it is unobligingly chilly (for the tourists, at least) and San Franciscans I believe are now heading in the autumnal months into the sunniest and warmest part of their year.

All the same, there are fallish signs. The air, in the morning at least before it warms up, does have a fall kind of briskness to it. The trees that can are starting to change their color. There are noticeably more dead leaves on the ground. The varieties of produce at the farmers market are changing. The days are remarkably shorter. Some nights are very chilly. All these signals transmit to me an upcoming change of activities. A difference in the foods we prepare; slow-cooked stew and pies; hearty fare whose long oven or stove times are welcome as they also help heat the house. The fireplace no longer is a mere dust-magnet, but beckons becoming another source of heat. The chances of rain in the weather forecasts are starting to shift, in places, from 0% to 20%, and maybe will afford me a car wash courtesy of mother nature.

Do the changes in the environment trigger in you your own sorts of behavioral differences?