Christmas is over.
It’s cold and dreary.
Can’t we skip ahead to springtime? Is that so wrong?
I have lived in California all my life and have no plans to move. I often hear people from colder weather climes say that our state has no seasons. Not true, we have seasons. Perhaps not to the mother loving, wacky extremes of some states (I’m looking at you, North Dakota), but seasons nonetheless. It could be argued, in fact, that California’s milder seasons offer more of a changing weather vista through the year than, say, Prewinter, Winter, Postwinter and Construction. And, hey, depending on where in the state one lives, there is a wide range to the version of California weather that one will see over the course of the annum. The Sierras with their yearly snowpack, Palm Springs with weather so fair their entire airport is outdoors and the rainy northern-most coast- home to the redwood rainforest (yep, it really is a rainforest). There’s a great deal of variety to the Golden State (which is how Hollywood ended up here in the first place- all those settings to film).
However, I digress.
While, I realize that the thirty-odd lows (Fahrenheit) we are currently experiencing, occasionally dipping below freezing, are nothing to other parts of the world; they are cold to me. Cold, cold, cold. I have no use for this feeling. Bring me sun, backyard barbeques, and days by the pool. Let me go to the beach, water ski on the lake and wear sundresses. I long for June. I miss the smells of sunscreen, chlorine and dinner barbecuing. I want to work in my garden and eat a Caprese salad made with the fresh tomatoes and basil that my family grows.
Granted, I am not immune to the charms of winter. There are moments with the breeze on my cheek as I run during a crisp, cold morning where I recognize the beauty of the weak winter sun. Likewise as one moves away from the lodge and chair lifts of the ski resorts there is a piquant loveliness in the soft sounds of snow falling from the branches of the surrounding evergreens. One revels in the serenity of the mountain, broken only by the swish and slice of one’s skis over the powder. I do love the reassuring drum of the rain on our roof in the night. Yes, there is much to appreciate about winter.
Oh, who am I kidding? Just seventy-one days to spring. Only one hundred sixty-three days to summer.
That’s 3,912 hours, 234,720 minutes or 14,083,000 seconds to summer.
It can’t get here fast enough.
