Seasons Come. Seasons Go

Spring: Growing Season

I was born on a day in March so I 'm a child of spring. In old China
there were no air-conditioners in summer or heaters in
winter. Many would-be parents had to plan ahead to deliberately have their children born in spring. It was no coincidence that both I and my young sister were born in March. Spring brought memories of wild yellow flowers on the hillside outside my dorm windows. Me and my girlfriends slicked out of our offices in the middle of the day. We lay on the hill soaking the warm sun. The spring sun brought out the freckles on my face so I hoped for the summer to sweat out the freckles. I watched the new buds coming out of the tree branches. I looked for signs of new life, and...I fell in love.

Time for a new life. Time to grow. Fell in love. Tasted sweet.

Summer: Blooming Season

My hometown Chongqing has been called an oven city because of its extreme hot summer weather. When I was attending the college, our campus was close to Yangtze River. Every year there were students drowning from swimming in the river. School rules forbade anyone from swimming in the river. But it was so hot, we always slipped out during the nap time to go swimming in the river. Hot days made people lazy too. No wonder they say people living in the tropics tend to be lazier than people living elsewhere. In those lazy summer mornings we woke up with our eyes just idling away. I used to travel a lot during every summer vacation. Hiked 40-50 miles a day along the deserted countryside under the burning sun. Came home all darkened out. Tanned skin was considered unattractive back then so I hoped the autumn would come quickly to pale my skin back.


Time for a splendid display. Time to bloom. Madly in love. Tasted hot and spicy.


Autumn: Parting Season

Leaves started turning color and then parted themselves from their branches. The ground was all covered with Canadian national flags. Summer bamboo mattress felt chilly on the skin. I put away my favorite summer shorts and skirts. Sentimental at sight of every falling leaf, reminiscing the passing time and missing my family and old friends back home. Moving in and out. Lost in the new city. Felt my artistic side and had an urge of painting and writing. The gradually shortened daylight made me aware of aging and dying, and the fleeting nature of life. Losing the other half of my heart to the half autumn moon outside the window. The full-moon festival in autumn heightened the sense of lost and loneness. The sky seemed to know how I felt too because it rained tears with me all the time.

Time for good-byes. Time to mature. Fell out of love. Tasted bitter.

Winter: Hibernating Season

I got to bed early as that was the only warm place for my cold feet. Felt the urge of peeing but spent rest of the night wrestling whether to get up in the cold to the only public bathroom at the other end of the long hallway. Hours later still laying in bed fantasizing how nice it would be if someday someone invented a container underneath a bed so I didn't have to get up and pee (20 years later, I heard this invention does exist and it's used in some hospitals for some terminally illed people).Waking up in the morning, my feet were still cold.  It was freezing cold inside and outside. Time froze with it, so was my sense of self. I laid myself to sleep. I slept in that cold bed a lot. I hibernated.

Time for a rest. Time to recoup. Buried love. Tasted lumb.

Years later and oceans apart, the cycle of the seasons continues to season me.