Winter has always been my favorite time of year, the brittle cold, and the crisp smell of chill in the morning. I like stamping around, blowing on blister red fingers because they’re near frozen from scraping ice off of my windshield. I long for the days where I get to watch my breath puff out of me, and see the wonder in my daughter’s eyes when her breath does the same.
Winter also brings my favorite holidays, Christmas and Valentines. I skip New Years because in my 24 years I have only ever gone to one New Year’s party, and though it was a ton of fun and I will always remember strolling along the near empty streets of London at 5:30 in the morning New Years day, hand in hand with my husband, grinning sheepishly at all the other people straggling around making their ways home after the New Year’s party to end all parties, the MILLENIUM party; celebrating the passing of another year, after being thankful for it in November, celebrating another Christmas (and my birthday) in December, I just can’t bring myself to get excited about yet another New Year.
But Christmas! Oh my Christmas! Breathlessly waiting to see snowflakes, which, after 24 years in the High Desert I should just give up on, but I still wait because there was that ONE year when I was twelve… watching my daughter’s eyes light up with wonder at all of the houses and stores decorated for the season. There’s nothing in this world quite as beautiful as a four-year-old’s smile, illuminated by a thousand tiny Christmas lights. Unless of course it’s the sparkle in their eye as they tell you for the tenth time what they are going to ask Santa for.
And Valentine’s. What a holiday. I can guarantee, well almost, guarantee that Valentine’s day will be a good 10 degrees COLDER than Christmas, unless it’s not a good 20+ warmer (here in the Valley we never know). Spring and romance are so far away yet here is a holiday that just begs you to grab a cozy quilt, some hot cocoa, and your significant other (husband in my case) and cuddle all day long, watching movies and enjoying one another.
So yes, Winter always has and always will be my favorite season, and yet, today as I was driving home in soul draining heat, I was left with a feeling of wonder. Summer in the desert is so darn beautiful. Where in the winter the sky is brittle and cold and looks as if you could shatter it if you threw a rock hard enough into the sky; Summer’s sky is just as hard. The clouds of summer form up quickly, and today they looked like paper cutouts of popcorn scattered across the sky, their edges so sharp I would have sworn they could cut something.
The light has a different quality too, over bright, over exposed, harsh and glaring. And yet somehow, and this is something which has escaped me even though I have lived here all my life, it is the perfect lighting for the landscape. It throws everything into high contrast. No muted colors here, no aerial perspective to fuzzy up and blur out the horizon. Everything is crystal clear and sharp as broken glass.
And just like broken glass, just as strangely and uniquely beautiful.
Mind you, I was sitting in my car with my air conditioner turned on full blast with the full knowledge I would be sitting in my house with the air conditioner on full blast within about forty-five seconds of leaving the car.
There is NOTHING romantic or wonderful about being so hot that your eyes are dry and your tongue is thick and swollen. I still have to blow on blister red fingers in the summer, but not with as much thrill or joy. No, usually it’s because I really have blistered them or at least burned them opening my car door which from now until late September will be a mobile oven. You can’t sit on the couch and cuddle with a loved one in the midst of Summer either. It’s usually so hot, even with air conditioning that you don’t want anyone near you… too much body heat.
But to paraphrase Olivia Newton John and John Travolta, “Oh those summer nights.” Sweetly scented, blood orange and midnight blue skies with a slight breeze that just makes you want to walk around in your backyard naked so you can feel all of the breeze on your bare skin, caressing you like an old lover.
I love summer nights, the clarity of the stars, the difference in the colors, but I must say I loathe the length of the night. Why can’t it be longer?
I remember one summer; it must have been 1996 or 1995 because I was in my mid-teens. There was a huge multiple state power outage caused, reportedly, by a large bird landing on an un-insulated wire. It was also the hottest day that year, 116 degrees and hotter than you-know-where. After hours without power, I went outside and laid in the shade of our tree, flat against the baking cement of my driveway, wishing for a breeze.
If I close my eyes and think hard enough the only color that comes to mind is rust, as if I was wearing rust colored glasses instead of rose ones. Deep and rich shades of red, orange, and yellow permeate my memory of that day, saturating it. Just thinking about that day can make me break into a sweat.
So yeah, Winter is my favorite, but perhaps I can grow to like the different, yet startlingly similar barrenness of Summer in comparison to Winter. (So long as I am air conditioned).
