I've thought often of how we look at a given season of the year, and how we assign so much to it. Most of what we want to see in a time of year -- like the one we're in now, Winter -- is of a romantic ideal, and our anticipation of that romance. This is mostly because of outside influences, though. Those influences classic or contemporary shape our perception of what is best about a particular season. Take The Beach Boys...their many, MANY songs about endless Summer (if only) on the beach and what we're promised there overwhelms the reality, if only for a while.
But then Summer hits, and reality gives us a good kick in the ass. Blistering high temperatures alone cause a world of problems. When the well-named 'dog days' of the season arrive, life in the summertime starts to resemble a powderkeg. You've all been there.
Things are supposed to be a little different with Winter, though. I don't just mean with Season's Greetings and the buildup for Christmas and New Year's that's getting longer to endure each year. The images are constants that hit us and are remembered by us when Halloween ends, and the anticipation of the season and the best it has to offer are incredible. We see images of children and families in better-than-natural equilibrium with their snow-covered environment, whether going on a sleigh ride or snowball fighting. Lovers think of time curled together in front of a romantic fire, chestnuts roasting. There are many more examples but I won't bore you with them. You already know them.
Then Winter is official, and what we have to deal with is very different from the ideal. Comfort and joy are replaced with how dumb and foolish we can be more than half the time. The better-than-perfect times of snowball fights are replaced with the need to stay inside because the snow is often mixed with rain. Or ice. Or sleet. And again, people show how dumb they are half the time with their (lack of) ability to drive in such weather. And I don't have to remind you of the other things this season can hit us with.
Like flus and colds.
I just got hit by a flu bug today, not long after I recovered mostly from the LAST one. It makes everything hurt, and I feel the seductive need to be in bed to get away from the soreness, the cotton in my head. I will hit the sack soon...
...but I'll do so with this simple question.
Why can't we make the season the best it can be, instead of having to live with the worst it can offer half the time?
It may be useless to ask that, but I want to...I want the romance back.
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