From when I was born until I turned thirty, I lived in four different places that went through the cycle of four seasons.
I remember warm summers in Portugal building sandcastles at the beach. I remember our apartment getting cold and damp in the winter and feeling mesmerized by the beauty of frost on the grass some mornings.
I remember humid summers in Illinois playing for hours a day in our family's above-ground, backyard pool. In winter, we crammed in post-school snow play before the night fell early.
I remember dry summers in Colorado, thunder rumbling somewhere in the sky almost every afternoon. I remember Christmases - the grass all brown and crispy, patches of snow in the shade, bare trees, and the brilliant blue sky overhead.
Even California had four seasons. I remember summers getting hotter and hotter, not a drop of rain with temps peaking in August and September bringing wildfires. By December, it was finally cool. Drizzly rains came and citrus trees were heavy with oranges and lemons.
When I left these Northern climates and came to Thailand, a tropical country with three seasons - hot, rainy, and cool, everything felt… wrong. Without the cyclical unfolding of four seasons, I felt like I had lost my bearing.
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| December 2017 visiting Colorado and building a snowman ...versus... |
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| December 2019 in Bangkok tromping around the flowers at the King's Park |
But, now approaching four years of calling this tropical country "home," I now recognize the march through our three seasons -- hot; rainy; and cool -- and as the seasons pass one into the other I feel comforted because I expect them.
Here in Bangkok, the holidays come not with pumpkin spice everything or avoiding slushy puddles in the Target parking lot, but with an end to the rains, a stiff breeze, and runs at the local park amidst millions of flowers planted in honor of the late King's birthday. Every morning, we try to decide "Should we open the windows to let in the finally cool air or keep them shut against the pollution?"
In a few months, just as trees in the States put out fragile tight buds, the schools here let out. The heat index soars to 110… 120. I walk slowly along the sidewalk, hugging the shade, and pouring sweat. The smell of motorbike exhaust mixes with the smell of durian being chopped, weighed, and sold from the back of a pickup truck. With no rainfall and no clouds to block the relentless sun, even the pool and the ocean get too hot to cool us down and the entire nation throws water at each other to welcome the Thai New Year.
Right around when teachers and students in the States press through the last stretch to summer break, the clouds here quickly pile up high and dark, the wind whips. And minutes later the rain pours hard marking the beginning of five months of rainy season - time to pull out the uniforms and sharpen the pencils… back to school the kids go.
In September and October, pictures from the US tease us with images of sweaters and carved pumpkins. Here, the hot and humid rainy season presses on, no changes perceptible, though if you step outside and look up, there are hundreds of dragonflies flitting about just a few meters above the ground. Where they come from and where they go, I don't know, but I look for them every year.
As I now cycle through the three seasons from hot to rainy (and still hot) to cool(ish) I feel comforted because I am beginning to feel the change in my bones. Things are starting to feel on track. Things are starting to feel right again.
