Vision Magazine

After the Fall, Winter and Spring

by Michael Raysses

As an expatriated Midwesterner who writes for a magazine that is mainly circulated in places that aren't exposed to the four seasons I grew up in, I feel more than a little sheepish weighing in on the topic of "spring healing." I am not casting aspersions on spring's palliative power; quite honestly, I just don't personally feel any wound inflicted by the winters on the West coast for spring to heal. In fact, one of the things I miss most about living here is the carousel of the four seasons I grew up with while living in Chicago. Come to think of it, though, "carousel" may be a bit romantic--the weather there is more analogous to a centrifuge--one with no "off" switch.

As a kid, I experienced summer, fall, winter, and spring as singular beings; four distinct personalities, unconnected beyond their sequence and status as seasons.

Back then, not surprisingly, summer was my favorite. Appearing ostensibly out of nowhere, it was like a big dog that didn't know where to stand. Warm and wet, ungainly but endearing, who couldn't embrace summer? What wasn't there to love, especially after the house arrest that winter had placed everyone under? All it required of me was that I cast off the layers of clothes that winter necessitated, and lift my eyes from the road, refocusing on the heavens above. Summer made good on spring's foolhardy promise. Even when it was time for its retreat, I didn't mind because it was time for Mother Nature's cotillion.

Eternally smelling of the leaves we would rake into piles and burn in sacrifice, I loved everything about fall. Its poise, its penchant for drama. Its unerring sense of timing in knowing exactly when to say goodbye, and to do so on its own terms. And even when it had gone, it had the grace to leave parting gifts strewn on the ground in its wake, a reminder of its timeless beauty.

Maybe it's no coincidence that fall's splendor gave way to the most formidable of the four, winter. Shapeless and gray, it had many faces, few that I welcomed. It was surly and unpredictable; it rarely had the decency to announce its arrival beyond the icy stab of wind that gusted out of nowhere on a sunny day that seemed like it still belonged to fall. It was deceitful, first showing its face draped in the white lace of a virgin snow, only to blow it back with a frozen blast from the north, revealing eyes that coated everything with its icy stare. Most of all, it was morbid and cruel, overstaying its welcome, leaving only after it had worn everyone down by attrition.

But like a homely woman that gives birth to an inexplicably beguiling child, winter gives birth to spring. In Chicago, spring isn't really a season. It's a three-day weekend, more of a climatic post-it for Mother Nature that summer isn't too far away and if she wants to make it on time, it might be nice to have a little prelude. So she whipsaws a blissful confection into being, using nothing more than a little sunshine, some thunder showers, and a dash of color supplied via her Merit badge for making all of this come together--the lilac bush. Every year I celebrated spring's arrival by finding my favorite lilac bush and thrusting my face deep into its redolent bosom, breathing in fully, banishing any residual winter still lodged in my lungs.

Living here, though, has allowed me to come to a new understanding of the seasons. Whereas before I saw them as disparate siblings, today I see that all four are in cahoots in the most outlandish conspiracy imaginable. By growing up in their collective shadow, they have educated me in the most profound manner possible--their lesson isn't some abstract logic banging around in my head--it is in my bones, shiny and barbed. By being exposed to summer's blazing torch, only to be pitched into winter's freezing grip, I have been forged like the strongest piece of steel. And by having the friction of fall and spring rubbed across my soul, my spirit has been honed to a razor's edge so that no matter where I go, whatever situation I am posed with, I have learned an invaluable lesson--"This Too Shall Pass."

It is something I revisit frequently. When my phone is silent with opportunities that never transpire, when I am trying to write and the words scatter like cockroaches in bright light, I am not so much healed by the four seasons as I am formed by them. Somewhere inside me the awareness lives that the cold that shivers me to my core will give way to a warmth from within that defies description. That the heat that blisters me so intently that drawing a breath becomes an impossible labor will surrender to the wind's cool kiss, reaffirming my faith in something so much greater than anything I can see and feel. And if that's Greek to you, don't worry--this too shall pass.