Capricorn

Every season brings with it new sights and smells, nostalgic feelings, hope or despair, and anticipation or regret.  I used to owe my loyalty only to summer, the cool river swims on hot July days and the sweep of dense fescue or tall alfalfa in August.  'The hotter the better,' was my mantra.  As I get older, though, I've gotten so that I love the smell of every season, the crunch of leaves and ripe fruit in the fall, with its colorful apple orchards and pumpkin patches, and the bite of winter, the fresh snow that seems to clean the slate, and naked trees, resting their sap from a long season.  I love spring when ice sickles drip away and xylem and phloem fill with life, and when young fawns rest in the new blades of young grass and weeds, ears flicking just above the fray.  I guess you'd say I'm a temperate latitude sort of guy.  Maybe some of you can relate, having grown up expecting these seasonal shifts in flora and fauna, climate and comaraderie.  I think that looking back on work in the tropics, seasonal shifts was one of the big things that I missed.  I expected to miss family and friends, and the security of home, but I had never thought that I would miss the dependable coolness of winter, and the release and anticipation of summertime.  Days were long, and the sun hung just as high almost all year long, and my Virginia body was out of sorts.  I admire some peoples' ability to move from place to place, relentlessly adapting and finding new exciting places and experiences, but I wonder if it is natural.  It is courageous to go out and adapt to new seasons, mixing summer with winter and fall with spring, diving into new valleys and swimming new currents, but, in the end, our seasons will call us back home, and we will live only one truth.

As with all of life, I revel in the newness of Spring, the Fullness of summer, the harvest of Autumn, and the rest of Wintertime.  Satisfaction with all seasons of life is underrated, and nevertheless, essential.