The clocks have lost an hour. Outside the leaves are falling, covering our driveway and lawns in a blanket of yellow and brown. The air is dry, and the light dim, and the mellow hues of fall are giving way to the brown nakedness of winter. This is my first true experience of Pennsylvania’s changing seasons, or first true experience of United States' changing seasons, since Pennsylvania has seasons in a way Texas does not. It was cold, dim and grey. We spent most of our time indoors, finding comfort not only in warmth but, as the days grow short, in light. I told my housemate Joey, who had been raised up in Ohio, how I felt. His reply changed me more deeply than I had expected. “I know how you must feel. It is very different from Texas,” he said. “But what I see are the changing seasons, and each season is beautiful in its own way.” Change itself is a beautiful thing. It is the promise of something new. We can define our experience of winter by it being cold and dark. Equally, we can define it through the comfort and pleasure we take in warmth and in light. Summers can never be cosy in the same way. Nothing is permanent. In the midst of every winter is the knowledge that spring will follow. Even when the cold winds blow and the world seems to be covered in foggy shadows, the goodness of life lives on.
P.S. For the past two years, I have been sharing my random thoughts (almost) weekly back in late 2020, I am grateful to this practice and to all of you for the support and encouragement over the years. In recent months, I’ve felt like my newsletter writing in this space has grown a bit stagnant. This newsletter is not something I try to monetize, to me it’s more a space that I have used to grow my own capacity as a writer and thinker. I’ve tried my best to inoculate myself against caring about hot-button topics and avoid using clickbait title to hook you in. I hope these bits of writings can provide you something to tinker with rather than another alternative of TikTok shorts. Thanks for reading through, I hope you have a peaceful time in the days ahead.
Warmly, landisland