There is one particularly exasperating thing about living in Hampton Roads: the weather. It can be 77 degrees on Tuesday and 40 on Wednesday, this in December. Some people love this. They call it a temperate climate. Personally, I find it disheartening. I would love to have a winter like those of my childhood, with snow banks against the house, no school, homemade soup, hot chocolate, and days and days of nothing but play. Fast forward several years and it would be snow banks against the house with the dogs trying to walk on top without sinking, mugs of rich coffee, boots and sweaters, and days and days of nothing but books to keep me company. But there is hardly ever snow here any more. In fact, it’s been at least five years since we had more than a dusting. Global warming is alive and well, and it is the bane of my existence. And I blame this for my lack of writing. A non sequitur you say? Probably, but bear with me. I love cold weather for several reasons: I love to wear boots and sweaters and long coats. When I wear boots and sweaters and long coats it makes me feel very nostalgic for days gone by. When I feel nostalgic for days gone by, I almost inevitably begin to tear up because I remember someone who is no longer in my life for whatever reason, and then I remember that part of my life that is gone, and then I remember fall. (I never said that my nostalgia had any sense of logic to it. It’s called Lita logic, and my family stopped trying to unravel it years ago; it’s best that way). Fall is my favorite season, more than winter. Fall is aroma, color, the end, and the beginning. It is also the height of my creative cycle. Everything devastating has happened to me in the fall; hence everything that I consider to be my best work, I have written in the fall. I have shot all of my best photography in the fall. I have had my lowest lows in the fall. I unearth my boots in the fall. I start to drink coffee in earnest in the fall. I make my life-changing decisions in the fall.
I wonder, does anyone else have a season in which their muse is so affected?
Lola's Curmudgeonly Musings 