The year is divided into 4 seasons (cuatro estaciones), the winter (el invierno), the spring (la primavera), the summer (el verano) and the fall (el otoño), and the impacts of each season can be different depending on exactly where you live. In the summer, the days are long (largos) and typically, the days are hot (calientes), the temperatures allowing for a change of clothing (la ropa) and often a change of scenery, as summer also signals vacation and travel (las vacaciones y los viajes). In the fall, the season changes as the harvest of fruits (las frutas) and vegetables (las verduras) comes to an end, the trees lose their leaves and the days begin to shorten (bajar). For most people, the winter means cold temperatures, some times snow (el nieve), but for sure the time when all things are dormant and the days are short. The spring is a time of rebirth, a time when all things (todas las cosas) become as new.
I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and we definitely had four distinct season (cuatro estaciones distintas), the summer bringing sweltering heat and humidity, the fall cool temperatures (temperaturas frescas) and colorful displays in the trees, the winter often freezing rain (el aguanieve) with cold temperatures and constantly gray skies and the spring lighting up the valleys (las valles) with wild flowers and the woods (el bosque) with green foliage. I have lived in other places, such as Santa Fe, NM, where the summer meant tourists (las turistas), the fall brought refreshment, the winter meant snow, and the spring delivered hope (la esperanza) and renewal. Here in El Paso, we are also said to have four seasons, but they are summer, fall, wind (el viento) and spring, there is really not too much of a winter, although the bareness of the trees and the brown remnants of the lawn (el cesped) are reminders that winter is present and dominating.
Yet, I still would have a normal flow to a year, the sequence (el orden) of the seasons is as much a rhythm (un ritmo) of life as it is a signal to behavior, it is a call to the natural within us that drives us in a way (una manera) that brings continuity and consistency. It is part of the normal cycle (el ciclo normal) of our days, like the sun coming up in the morning (en la mañana) in the East and setting in the evening (en la noche) in the West. It is the order of days and months, with each and every instance implying congruence (igualdad) to the annual way in which we not only conduct our business (nuestros negocios), but in the way we conduct ourselves. We tend to spread our wings (nuestras alas) in the summer, get to work in the fall, hide out and hibernate (hibernar) in the winter, and emerge and reinvent ourselves in the spring.
For me this calendar year (el ano calendario) is unique in that in the height of what should have been my summer, July, I was transported to Santiago, Chile where I was placed smack dab in the middle (en la mitad) of winter. Although winter in Santiago is not winter in Minneapolis, it does have a constant damp cold, think San Francisco or Seattle, where the cold (el frío) sinks right into your bones (sus huesos) and you have to keep moving to stay warm. Winter in Santiago means wearing your coat (el abrigo) and your scarf (la bufanda) inside, eating lots of soup and drinking lots of Nescafe, trying to stave off the cold and survive through August to make it to the beginning (la comienza) of spring in September. After the national celebrations in September, the push for spring begins with the trees (los árboles) and plants (las plantas) leading the way, the once barren hillsides and walkways filling in green of new life all around (alrededor).
As summer was approaching in December, I had to return (regresar) to the United States as my Fulbright experience came to an end, and as I stepped off the plane (el avión) in El Paso, I had also stepped back into winter once again (otra vez). I have experienced a number (un numero) of firsts over the past few months, such as my first October birthday (los cumpleaños) in the spring in South America, but I can honestly state that I have never had a year in which I will have had two winters (dos inviernos) and two springs (dos primaveras) within a 365-day period. Some might think this is a bit of rip off, as I left the hope of the summer for the dread (el terror) of the winter, a seemingly Groundhog day experience that somehow would be an undoing, a backward glance (una mirada atrás) to the past, a time of hopelessness and without a future (sin un futuro).
Yet, lost in all that downtrodden perceptions (las percepciones) is the fact that there is also two springs, two separate chances at new beginnings (empiezas nuevas), two unique settings for setting something new (algo nuevo) in motion. That is the hope that I cling to in this winter age, my second of the year (mi segundo del ano), as I wait for the spring to come knowing that my time of rebirth (el renacimiento) will happen once again.
