Seasons, A Story.

   I'm not sure when I stopped noting the changing of the seasons, but I can define the moment I began to notice them again. When the girls were small, I remember the first days of school seeming ludicrous to me. They were not going back to school, and I was a stay at home mom, so the whole shennanegin was lost on me. I would watch Back To School ads and laugh, wondering what sort of difference that made to me. It did not. But the seasons changing were pungent and present as we visited parks and museums and the zoo began to grow colder, after some scorching summer days. We would buy winter clothes because they'd grown out of last year's pants and coats, and I would look forward to Thanksgiving as it was  "my" holiday to have the family over.
   My mom says I was always "blue" in the fall. I have no real memory of that, only that my birthday is in October and I liked Halloween, so the "blue" thing vexes me. But if I look back on it, I can say that as I got older, I definitely became more depressed in the fall. Yet I loved it, I loved the colors and the leaves and the air and sweaters and corduroy pants...there is no bad here. When the girls were little, Halloween was two months of planning. We had to plan, yet be flexible, because they might change their minds the first of October. Several years I created or built the costumes. They were bugs from Bug's Life one year. For at least two years they were  dinosaurs which I loved.They evolved to wearing Halloween pieces to preschool and, eventually, kindergarten. Harp would go to the fabric store with me and touch all the pretty pieces, making her decisions on textures not colors.
  Once school started for them and I started teaching, the seasons were no longer seasons but breaks.
  I started noting the seasons again last year. Nothing was OK and I found myself clinging to moments, to clouds, to changing leaves, to breathing air, to anything and everything that was the ritual of change. Nature. Calm. I would think "What a beautiful day to visit a psych ward" and "It's gorgeous tonight" as I entered an ER. I turned my eyes skyward for strength, not realizing I was also searching for strength. Nothing like things spinning completely out of your control to force you back into focus.
  This year, as we move cautiously forward and I repeat my new mantra "I do not believe in hope, I have faith", I am forcing myself to note the orange glow of light, the dappled trees and smell the sweet air. I cannot hope, I refuse. I agree that hope crosses its fingers and walks through the fire. I did that already. I believe in faith, which leaps over the fire. Eyes upward, noting the air and nature's relentless disregard for my human anxiety, I am cautiously optimistic. I don't dare breathe a sigh of relief, or celebrate any sort of imagined success. There is only now, and I'm pretty sure that's a line from RENT, which I hate, so it must be time to go.