Fall. That’s what happens to my mood this time of the year as days grow shorter and shadows lengthen. I know most folks love autumn, the cooler weather and changing colors, but not me. I am a summer gal. I love hot weather! As temperatures rise, so do my spirits. When temperatures hit triple digits, I do the dance of joy.
As the autumnal equinox approaches, my mood darkens and my spirit fades. Even as leaves turn red and gold, and the humming birds leave our feeder and head south, I keep telling myself there are more hot summer-like days to come. I wear my capri pants and flip-flops when others are in jeans and boots, embracing the mantra of a Little Rock friend, “Bare your toes until it snows!”
Here’s my un-American confession. I don’t like football. I may have cheered for the Chicago Bears and Da Coach, but I don’t like football. I never have and I doubt I ever will. I love soccer; the game played in short pants with a round ball, but not football. It must be my Latin blood, rooted in my love of hot weather and aversion to being cold. To me, football signals the end of summer and is the harbinger of the winter to come.
Most of my life was spent in the north, but I am not a fan of winter sports. My husband and I did cross country ski, but the one time I tried down hill skiing, it left me cold. Literally. My idea of winter sports involves white sand beaches and azure blue water. On winter days when Don would head for the ice skating rink across the street from our apartment building in Chicago, I would go to the pool, enclosed in a glass dome, where I could swim and pretend I was on a tropical island. I don’t want my rum hot and buttered by a roaring fire; I like it on ice with tonic and a slice of lime under a palm tree.
I love living in the south. I say, “I wasn’t born here, but I got here as fast as I could!” Southern living appeals to me; slow and easy, lack of pretension, casual, friendly, tee-shirts, short pants and flip-flops, that’s my style of living. Spring comes early, summers are long, autumn is warm and winters are short. Snow here doesn’t start falling in October as it does in the north, and when we do get snow, it’s “now you see it, now you don’t.”
Here in the Ozarks, I can hold my breath and get through winter. After the winter solstice, as the days slowly begin to get longer and the sun moves up in the sky, my mood brightens and I begin to think spring and summer. I immerse myself in college basketball because with the March Madness of the NCAA tournament comes spring. I cheer when I see brave little daffodils popping their heads up in February. I watch for the first sign of red buds, dogwood blossoms, returning humming birds, and bring out my capri pants and sandals.
Sometime after Halloween, when the trees are bare and frost covers the ground, I will, begrudgingly, release my hold on summer. I’ll pull on a sweater, slip into socks and shove my angry toes into Bass Weejuns while singing a Jimmy Buffet tune and thinking warm weather thoughts, because summer is really just around the corner.
M! Oct/Nov 2013
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