Venture Galleries Blog for Readers and Writers

Last One Chosen

Do you change with the seasons?

October 5, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the things that is hard to realize about the Internet is that many of the thousands of people who visit us at Venture Galleries each month are spread out around the globe.

We all tend to be provincial, believing that our little slice of the world is like everyone else’s.

As I write this on the last day of September 2012, the season is changing from summer to fall. A cool north breeze has brought rain and temperatures in the 60s. The leaves have yet to change but will do so in the next couple of weeks, painting East Texas orange, red and brown.

October is probably the most wondrous month of the year for us. It brings  shirt sleeve weather during the day, jackets at night for outdoor activities like football games.

As I grow older, I find myself more affected by the change in seasons.  Fall with its coolness invigorates me, while it causes me to become more reflective. As winter approaches and the trees shed their leaves, the landscape browns, I miss the foliage and yearn for spring.

Grayton Beach in October
Grayton Beach in October

January is a bitch, February her sister.

But for now, we have two months of mild weather to enjoy, holidays on tap, goblins preparing to terrorize us.

It seems to me that people come to life in September, hit their strides in October, and begin to store up acorns in November.

It is strange to me that the months of October and March have so little in common although they share similar temperatures.  March is blooming and anticipation; October, fading and reminiscences. March is youth and dreams; October, autumn years and memories.

I love to go to the beach in the Florida Panhandle in October.  On the Gulf of Mexico, the water remains warm, while the beaches trade sun-worshipers for baby boomers who take long walks and search the horizon for things that used to be. The relentless breaking of waves reminds me of the cycle of life, a cycle at once reassuring yet impersonal, larger than any person, philosophy, or creed. If I stand barefoot in the surf, I feel at one with something greater than myself, something powerful, mysterious, strange yet comforting.  I don’t know that I will make that pilgrimage this year, but I will think about times when I have.

So what is it like where you are now?  Have the seasons changed?  Has your soul changed with them?

(Stephen Woodfin is the author of five legal thrillers including The Warrior With Alzheimers: The Battle for Justice, which is set in the Florida Panhandle.)

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  • http://twitter.com/CalebPirtle Caleb Pirtle

    I have always loved the break of the heat of a Texas summer as we move into fall. Most people I know yearn for Spring. I’ll take Autumn every time. When the mornings turn cool, I feel renewed again and, at my age, I need all of the renewal I can get.

    • http://www.venturegalleries.com Stephen Woodfin

      Caleb, I feel the same way.

  • http://twitter.com/DigitalBkToday Anthony Wessel

    I seem to gain weight every Oct. and Nov. Maybe because I live in the northern climates of the U.S. and we had 3 inches of slushy snow yesterday which causes the “fattening for winter” impact on my body.

    • http://www.venturegalleries.com Stephen Woodfin

      I usually refer to that experience as “putting on my winter coat.” If I’m lucky, I will be back at my pre-October weight by the following April.

  • Jack Durish

    Seasons? This is California where I live and we alter temperatures and all those things that you associate with seasons, by driving from the mountains to the ocean and stopping anywhere between.

    • http://www.venturegalleries.com Stephen Woodfin

      Jack, that’s sort of a do it yourself season thing. It is always amazing to me to go high in the mountains and feel the coolness. The get in a car and drive a couple of hours to a desert floor or a rocky beach. It’s like living in parallel universes.

  • http://twitter.com/jvonbargen Jo VonBargen

    I’m with you and Caleb, Stephen. Autumn in Texas is such a relief! Now that I’m older, I’m much more aware of cycles and seasons for everything. Like you, I’ve always felt connected to nature and humanity, but now sense to a greater degree that which is greater than all things. It’s a very comforting alliance, even a calming influence when all around is chaotic. It’s ironic that we spend a whole lifetime “seeking” that something that would answer everything, when all along it sat in our own beings unrecognized. I feel like I wasted a lot of time that I could have been spending on helping others to come to that realization. Now I feel like I have to catch up, and yet I’m still learning every day! There is so much to know and pass on about the nature of our being and the universe. Fascinating to the max!

  • http://twitter.com/CarsonCanada Christina Carson

    What I find most interesting is, from what I can remember, as a child I had no favorites as to seasons. I didn’t think in terms of things to like or dislike. I wasn’t so self-important then. Each season just had its peculiarities, those things that created the rhythm and interest of that time of year. I work to return to that place of little self-importance and openness to whatever is. Life is good that way.

    • http://www.venturegalleries.com Stephen Woodfin

      As you know so well, Christina, Western thought and Eastern diverge dramatically at this point. For those of us conditioned by western philosophy the world is an object to be used and manipulated to our own ends. Eastern thought focuses on the oneness of all things. It is when I stand next to the ocean that I have the greatest sense of this. I, too, hope to learn how to give up control and let oneness embrace me.