The Dilemma of Choosing a Favorite Season Leaves Me No Choice
I’ll sit on the fence and remain undecided
“The seasons they go round and round”, Joni Mitchell sings in The Circle Game.
Where do I begin?
Perhaps where I began in spring. Maybe I should start in autumn, the season in which I’ve celebrated my birthday for over sixty years?
No, it’s not a riddle.
I was born during late spring in London, England, but moved to South Africa in the late autumn of 1958.
The ship departed from Southampton and we sailed from one season to another after crossing the equator and arriving in Cape Town ten days later.
It’s a simple case of location. Unless you live on the equator, the northern and southern hemispheres experience opposite seasons because of the angle of the earth as it rotates around the sun.
(Enough with the geography lesson — we get it!)
Let me add to your confusion before I continue.
Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate — hot dry summers and cool wet (and windy) winters — whereas Johannesburg, on the Highveld, enjoys a temperate climate with hot wet summers and cold dry winters.
Durban and the surrounding areas on the eastern coast, whose shorelines are on the Indian Ocean, have a sub-tropical climate accompanied by high humidity and mild winters.
The point I’m making is that the four seasons contain many variations, which depend on location. For instance, in the winter months in the US, snowbirds flock to Florida to enjoy its warmer climes.
Gauteng province offers one of the world’s best climates — I agree. Although our cottage is just inside the border of North-West province, we enjoy awesome weather, although our temperatures are one or two degrees Celsius higher than in Jo’burg.
Poetic Interlude
The Four Seasons
Autumn, winter, Summer, spring Depends which Hemisphere you’re in
Don’t know which season I should choose I’m beyond reason Got the blues
I’m dreading living without lights Cocoa brewed in gratitude On cold Highveld winter nights Will it change my attitude
Autumn now is creeping near Days not too hot nor very wet It’s colder weather that I fear No gas heater purchased yet
My ripening peppers bring me joy And the parsley’s coming on Soon spinach seeds I shall deploy Before the sun moves, summer gone
I’ll witness winter, not as cold With planet warming, I can feel The weather’s changed, can we hold back The march of fossils, oil and steel
Will spring arrive on time or late Can we predict the coming seasons Will drought and floods and storms abate Summer breed new age of reason
Such is our life, an ebb and flow Of changing tides, we must adjust We cannot claim we didn’t know Why the mountains have no snow Why people have nowhere to go When all that’s left is cosmic dust.
My reference to being without lights or a gas heater in this poem speaks of the daily power cuts we are enduring in South Africa. This has been continuing since 6 September last year, with no end in sight. Currently (haha!) we are off for ten hours a day. I dread to think of how long we’ll be without power when winter arrives.
The climate patterns across our planet are changing — extreme weather events have become the norm. The seasons have become unpredictable.
For example, Europe experienced a milder winter, the canals in Venice are running dry through lack of rainfall. Meanwhile our summer here gave us weeks of extreme heat followed by weeks of relentless rain, with some provinces experiencing massive floods.
Growing my veggies has been a major challenge, but we survived together and grew!
I can’t say the same for our farmers — those whose lower crop yields are not because of flooding, but suffer losses because of lack of electricity for their irrigation pumps and cold storage facilities.
We all face challenges as we travel through this life, but I am angry that our government refuses to accept culpability for inflicting this situation upon us.
We cannot forgive those who do not own up totheir mistakes!
I’ll end where I began — with Joni Mitchell and The Circle Game.
Thank you for being here.
My gratitude to Sahil Patel for this prompt asking which season is our favorite. Please forgive me for being unable to give you a definitive answer!
Further reading you may enjoy:
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