When I was growing up there were only two seasons that I was aware of: in school and out of school.
Oh sure, you instinctively knew the joys of hot summer days, but that just meant it was summer vacation, and you knew winter meant sledding and snowball fights (at least during those years when I wasn’t living on a tropical island, where seasons are a whole different story), but that was only on weekends or holidays when you didn’t have, well, school.
And don’t get me started on spring and fall. Spring meant that summer vacation was approaching, while fall meant it was ending.
If this gives you the impression that I hated school, I apologize. I generally enjoyed school, even though as I’ve mentioned before I was a Navy brat so we moved a lot and I was the new kid in school every two or three years, but my dazzling academic brilliance made up for the fact that I was shy and, looking back, pretty much a nerd. (This academic prowess, by the way, dissipated in college when I discovered a social life I had not previously enjoyed, not to mention some alternate means of enlightenment not found in the classroom.)
No, what I really enjoyed was summer. Long, hot sunny days spent outside running wild until dinnertime, swimming and playing endless made-up games, cooling off by running through a sprinkler or plopped down in front of a fan (we didn’t always have air conditioning in the old days), drinking gallons of Kool-Aid and downing dozens of ice cream cones, not having to wear unnecessary attire like shoes and jackets and shirts….
And, of course, running around in the yard on warm, humid evenings catching fireflies in jars and putting them on your nightstand by your bed as a natural nightlight while you slept in your warm, humid bedroom (see no AC, above).
I had a wonderful childhood and I remember almost all of it with great fondness and nostalgia, but it wasn’t until I grew older that I started appreciating the seasons. Part of it was the fact that you trade the academic cycle when you had those precious few weeks of summer for the endless grind of a job and precious little time off in any season.
I feel that now I pay attention to nature more than I ever did. While I will never be a fan of cold weather, I can appreciate the beauty of snow and the brilliance of the stars on a cold winter night. Autumn means cool nights, the smell of leaves and, sadly, the reintroduction of socks. Spring is all about green after months of brown and gray, and watching the magical transformation of yards and trees and flowers into what ultimately becomes, yes, my favorite time of year.
We live in the mountains, so we are blessed in the summer with cool or, at worse, warmish nights, perfect for sitting outside after the sun sets watching darkness descend. The tree frogs or crickets or katydids or whatever they are start up their buzzing and chirping, the quintessential song of summer if there ever was one. At our house we watch the bats flap out into the darkening sky, snatching up insects as they dart and zigzag about, only occasionally getting tangled in your hair or going for your jugular (just kidding!). And, best of all, the fireflies come out flashing and blinking in their spectacular light show, just like they did when I was a kid.
Fireflies, or lightning bugs if you prefer, are truly wondrous creatures. I mean, think about explaining them to people who’ve never seen them: “Yep, where I come from, we have these bugs, you see, and they fly around at night and their butts light up! Yes, their butts! Blinking on and off. Dunno why, probably attracting the lady bugs – no not those ladybugs, but lady bugs – or vice versa. Say, wouldn’t that be something if humans … nah, never mind.”
I was watching the fireflies the other night when we were outside once again futilely looking for the latest supposedly awesome meteor shower in which fireballs were expected to tear across the sky. F and I don’t seem to have much luck with these types of celestial displays, particularly for two people who spend an inordinate amount of time looking up at the sky. Our adult children still give us grief for the times we dragged them out of bed at 5 in the morning to look at yet another underwhelming meteor shower. But that’s okay, because the night sky even without streaking lights is pretty spectacular, and every four weeks you can count on a full moon to brighten things up.
Since we live in an area with long winters, we keep track of the sun more than a lot of people. We notice where it rises, when and where it shines in our house, and as I have mentioned before when and where it sets. We know when the summer solstice is by how far to the right the sun sets on the ridge line we see from our deck.
And inwardly I cringe when I can tell that it is slowly inching back to the left, realizing that soon the sun won’t be as high in the sky, or shine as brightly or as warmly, which means that, well, summer vacation will soon be over.