Two seasons.
There are four distinct seasons in the country I am currently living; But whenever I think about them as two main seasons and two intermediate ones, I’m magically teleported back home.
In Brazil we have nine months of summer and three months of rain. Yes, of rain. I wouldn’t dare to call it winter. Well, perhaps, for writing purposes, I will.
It’s December, five in the morning, and you’re tossing and turning in bed because it is too hot. You wake up and all you can think of is a huge bowl of your favorite fruit flavored ice cream. You take at least five showers a day, and you’re blinded by the sunlight that flows with the intensity of a lightning bolt from the windows. Everybody is slowed down by the warmth that surrounds the whole country.
It’s the swimming pool season! You bath in sunscreen by the simple thought of leaving the house, and before you reach the neighbor’s parking spot, you’ll get tanned in your face, neck and arms. You are magnetically dragged to the beaches, and their blue skies with absolutely no clouds. And, more often than you would like to admit, you catch yourself singing, and even dancing, while you cross the street to get a drink of fresh coconut water by the shore.
February. Sweet February and March, with its marching bands on the street and people running from party to party during carnival weeks! O… You got to love summer time!
Then comes June, and you program your mind with the following lines: You must believe in the last season as being the next one. But when it rains… It floods!
It doesn’t matter which time of day, it’s so cold and gray, and you can’t stop pressing “snooze” on your alarm clock. As soon as you get up, you find yourself with a huge cup of coffee. Something to warm you up. Something to keep you awake. Shower? Yes, of course... Once a day. And, if you’re lucky enough you won’t come back home, soaked from head to toes in tropical rain, as a second or even a third shower. Or, maybe you are lucky, and you won’t be soaked by yourself. Winter has its charming and this romantic appeal to most us.
The sky is gray and ugly and people’s mood gets basically the same. Avoid your neighbor’s parking lot… You never know. Your tan lines are starting to disappear and you can feel the warmth of the summer leaving your skin day after day. You’re not singing, you’re not dancing, and the coconut water gives place to three shots of whiskey on your favorite local bar.
But God gives and takes… And He gives it back. Au revoir, August; We welcome September! And people’s faces are full of joy once more.
Such different seasons, such a contrast. But if you give yourself some time to think about it you’ll see the importance of the divergence between things. It is because of the winter that we learned how to love summer. And with that said, with all their differences, I can’t love them both less than the same.