If days are seconds and months are hours, perhaps the seasons are the long clock, the turning of the infinite in ways that render the soul to greatest clarity.
The seasons come as a favourite bedtime story, each time the same and yet different in some marvellous way.
The foliage of the beech hedgerow in May were pure optimism, bright and young. Come August they were a reverent green, as deep as the North American pines. How those leaves told the story of the seasons, the return of colour followed by the strong browns of its winter wands.
My aunt would say, "Come! Let us take the iron horses and leave the real ones to play in the pastures and forests." So we went biking often, through the country that was a canvass for the seasons, a theatre for the birds who played upon wing.
Spring breathes warm, even in the northern climes, melting the ice that keeps the seeds and tree buds asleep. The seasons are indeed changing once more with delicate petals and fragrances we lost to the on-set of winter. These seasons, like the circle of life, are a rebirth, a renewal. I love warmer seasons with the vitality they bring, yet the winter has a haunting beauty of her own. She takes both valley and mountain into a slumber, scattering her crystals in frost and snow, revealing to us even the air we take for granted.
Seasons are said to "turn" as if they were a wheel or a never ending carousel, but nothing could be less true. Time stretches out, linear, leading onward to our own personal event horizon; unless we are wrong about time itself and our primate brains are stuck in this mode of thought, like cats being asked to ponder algebra. Perhaps we are to time what flat-earthers were to the world. In that case the seasons may indeed turn, but never in neat circles. Maybe the seasons are more like the skin of a well peeled apple cascading in crazy erratic turns. To me each arrives like a new party with timeless true friends, so welcome and fun; but like all parties there is a beginning, a middle and an end. We all wish for a long journey, though perhaps it is the beauty and warmth of the steps we should value more.
Seasons fade in and out like soft lullabies, their transitions slow but never faltering. Like mother earth herself they only turn in one direction, always onward, never back. As they wax and wane the pace of city life changes. In summer everyone is high energy, all systems go. With the first wash of autumn air, moving over the high-rises and suburbia like a shallow wave, the people slow down to a quieter pace. The winter is flatter still, but never falling into a negative spin, the folk of this city love the snow too much for that. Then spring comes to wake the metropolis: people, trees and blooms. Folks walk under newly unfurled leaves, smile at the fresh new flowers and tilt their faces upward to the new warmth in the sun's rays. Soon summer is back and the seasonal carousel is complete for another year.
As the seasons came and went the avenue changed it's colour palate. In the fall it was all about red, the winter brought brown and white, while the warmer months were simply green with splashes of summer blooms. The trees were lined up like an advance guard, Jenny liked that. She imagined they were soldiers frozen in time, their boughs at the ready, but then she loved Tolkien more than most. Rain or shine she let her fingers brush agains their gnarled trunks on the way to her morning bus, there was something about the feel, something of the earth. But no matter the time of year the traffic stayed the same, a procession of cars with drivers focusing only on their destination rather than the journey. Jenny wondered if they even noticed the leafy guardians about them, ever raised their eyes from the weary tarmac.
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