Seasons

Here in Florida we don’t really have Winter as much as just “not Summer,” but generally speaking we are all familiar with the changing of the seasons. Those changes come whether or not we like them, want them, or expect them. Seasons change, but one thing that tends to remain the same is that we always want the seasons to change, until they do. Writing this in January, most of us are likely longing for the first signs of Spring. We want to see the new buds on the trees, to see the grass turning green, the days getting longer and the weather warmer. For a glorious moment we will enjoy and appreciate it, but then we get reminded that Spring is not Summer. Spring has warm days filled with color and life, but it also has unexpected cold spells like “blackberry winter,” “dogwood winter,” and my favorite, “cotton britches winter,” not to mention the noses filled with pollen, so we long for Summer in the Spring. Summer arrives with days hot enough to go swimming and long enough to get everything done before dark. School is out and vacations are coming, but quickly it gets too hot and dry and we long for the break in the weather than only Fall can bring. When Fall arrives all is well in the world again. The leaves change colors, it’s cool enough for chili and campfires but not yet cold, the kids are back in school, football and hunting seasons begin, and you can finally stop cutting the grass. Eventually all those pretty leaves have fallen, the grass is now brown, and the trees are barren and you find yourself longing for the joy that comes with the snowfalls and holidays of Winter. Once Christmas and New Year have passed, it’s just cold and damp, and gray, and barren, and you can’t wait for Spring.

The more seasons I experience, the more I learn to appreciate the season I am in, and recognize the season of life I am in. Statistically speaking, the Summer of life has ended and Fall has arrived for me. This season of my life is mimicking the actual Fall in many ways. Like the leaves, the color of my hair is slowly turning to gray, and just as the leaves begin to change, so many things in my life have as well. My children are now grown, beginning adult jobs, starting their own homes and soon their own families. When a leaf changes colors it begins to die, but it is also a beautiful transformation. These changes in my life can be viewed as the death of what was or I can see the beauty of what is, and what is to come. Some of those leaves in our lives have already fallen, as Jade and I have grieved the loss of grandparents and parents, and know that more will come in time. Knowing this, I choose to stop, breathe deeply, and enjoy the beauty that comes in this season of life. There are things that have passed that will not come back around again, but there are also current things that are too wonderful not to stop and enjoy. Jade and I have just the two of us in the house, and have time to just be an old married couple for the first time in 25 years. Our schedule isn’t filled with Scout meetings and baseball practices and parent teacher conferences so we have time to sit and drink coffee and read together in the evenings. We can take off for the evening on the spur of the moment and not worry about finding a babysitter. We can sit with our sons and smile as we see their loves and lives blooming. This season is good, and so was the one before it, and the one before that, and I know the one to come will be as well. There are future things that will be glorious that I look forward to experiencing (grandchildren, retirement), but when that seasons arrives it will mark the end of this current season that is filled with so much beauty, and so I want to enjoy this one while it lasts. 

Even as I write these words I am watching the shades of life change again. In just a few weeks I will no longer be a resident of Florida. In the Springtime of my life the only thing that I wanted was to live in Florida, and appropriately, I spent the last five years of the Summer of my life in the Sunshine State. God has blessed me and given me the desires of my heart. But just now the lyrics from Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer” are echoing in my mind. “Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach, I feel it in the air, the Summer’s out of reach.” And to those I’ve shared this season of life with I can say with him, “I can tell you my love for you will still be strong, after the boys of Summer have gone.”

Within a matter of weeks I will be living in North Alabama. I’ve lived there before, briefly, as in, “almost an entire semester of college” briefly. I’ve been a resident of Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and soon Alabama, leaving me a residence in Mississippi away from a Southern Bingo, the prize for which I am certain is a Dolly Parton/Allman Brothers/Lynyrd Skynyrd/Alabama/Elvis greatest hits compilation cassette. I know North Alabama well. It’s not officially home, but as the crow flies it is just across the pasture from it. The arrival of this new season comes at the cost of many beloved things from the previous one, but that’s what life is all about. Seasons change, and there is much to love about the one that is arriving. Although my interpretation and application may be a little different than they intended, I can’t say it any better than Dolly and Porter:

Like the weather your heart changes with each season

Springtime, summer, fall and winter too

Though I know I'll never understand the reason

I still wonder why each season changes you.