Red and orange leaves float down and land silently on the backyard lawn, while she laughs and lets herself sink deep into the pile of leaves below her.
Just when the little boy thought his snowman couldn’t get any taller, he manages to stick even more fluffy white snow on top of the already mountainous pile on the snowman’s head.
She walks her way into a field with itchy eyes from the of the fresh spring flowers all around; the air is filled with a sense of something new to come.
Standing on the rock’s edge, he waits patiently. When he sees a few friends glance his way, he makes the most extravagant dive into the bright blue, frigid water. Hearing his friends’ muffled voices cheering him on, he makes his way up to the surface even faster, greeting them with soaking wet hair and the biggest grin he can make.
Unique moments are captured during certain chapters each year; they are created by the marvelous periods of time we call seasons. One does not, and cannot, do all of these things in one week, or even within a month, because nature is the decider. Nature, and what it brings to our senses (like the sun on our skin in the summer or the cotton candy sunsets in the spring) provide us with a gift unlike any other: to be surrounded by light and vivacious qualities, but also by darkness and mystery in times of transition.
We cannot have the spring, with its abundance of flowers and sunshine, without the snow melting away and revealing its grey and dirty grounds underneath. We cannot have the calm winter nights without all of autumn’s vibrant leaves falling to the earth after holding on for so long. This is not only a flawed system, but is beautiful. It is a perfect and wondrous system because not only can we love and cherish the flashes of “perfect” times, like falling into the leaves or diving into the water, but we can learn and contemplate during times of transition. We can stay inside and enjoy the view, but since the storm is not over yet, we can only remain indoors and focus on ourselves. No one truly enjoys the soggy brown leaves and the previous year’s dirty fall remains, exposed by the melted snow, as much as they enjoy the cheerful cherry blossoms that reappear year after year in the spring. However, it is in times like these that we learn to be okay with being in uncomfortable situations; we figure out that, in the end, we will learn, change, and evolve with the seasons.
The seasons are not only a measure of time, but are also a reminder that time is indeed passing. Memories are recalled when each season comes, but new ones are also formed in the process. The seasons are a model of life: there are times of darkness, such as when you think the winter will never come to an end, but there are also times of light, such as the sunshine on a walk in a field filled with flowers and butterflies. If we didn’t have the darkness, we would never cherish the light as much as we do, knowing what it is like to not have it.