“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave, it is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.”
Charles Dickens
I have found that I get giddy when I know the seasons are changing. Sometimes I’m that way even during the season. I never really noticed it until this year, but I wait, in anticipation, for the changing of the seasons. Partly, I suppose, because I am aware of what each season holds and partly because I don’t. I don’t know if spring will be short and the flowers will die quickly or if, like this spring, we’ve had plenty of time to enjoy the new life that has sprung forth. I also associate certain happenings with spring….Easter, the arrival of warmer weather, daylight savings time, evening walks and longer outside play, grilling out, and more time with friends. I do this with each season. Each season I feel giddy. Each season I love for it’s own possibilities, it’s on uniqueness, and it’s own happenings. Granted, I’m always a little hesitant to let go of summer, but I do (eventually) fully embrace each season.
I wonder, too, if the butterflies I feel in the pit of my stomach occur not only because of the changing of the physical seasons but also because of the changes in the seasons of my life. Admittedly, I am not always so excited about these, but when I look forward, I do have a sense of excitement, of anticipation. What will the next season bring? What changes will happen? What progress will be made? Where will our lives be next spring? And life is so much stranger as an adult. As an adult, I notice the time passing, the seasons changing. It goes more quickly with each passing year almost as if each year is getting shorter and shorter. It helps me to think on those tough seasons of life more realistically, short and passing, despite how long they may feel at the time.
Like the changing weather, my changing life changes in so many subtle ways each day that I scarcely know it’s happening until it’s done and dusted. Each season only lasts for a while and then it’s suddenly the next. The actual change is subtle, but the realization is sudden. I hope that it is always that way, that the seasons of my life will pass subtly and that I will, at some point, realize that they did.
This one actually looks kind of autumnal, but it’s really the blooms on our red maple!
Liz Cooper Photography 