As the seasons change

July is finally over and the glorious Massachusetts summer season is winding down. After having spent my last three summers in South Carolina and one in Hawaii, I had forgotten how short the warm season here is. In SC, July is just when it's starting to get hot, August is the most torturously sweltering summer month. Heat indexes topped 120 last summer while I was taking summer classes in Columbia; you really can't even go outside. But at least though, it stays warm well into November. Since July in MA is the warmest month, we have nowhere to go but down. This makes me sad, I posted a while back about how I live for the summer, and I really do. Winter is just so depressing and miserable. 

Driving down the street, mid-winter, everything is white, grey or black and dead. The only color Mother Nature provides is the occasional blue sky when the sun decides to show its face. It is especially brilliant the morning after a snowstorm. It is the most spectacular sight, the sky, vibrant blue and the sun so strong, bouncing off the white snow into your eyes. This is one of the few times the sun appears in the winter. I have begun to believe that even the sun doesn't like New England winter and that's why he doesn't come out very often, just enough to see if the snow has melted. The worst part of winter is the cold, it's worse when it's cold and there is no snow - it results in the bitterest of all bitters you have experienced. The kind where you step out of your warm house into the frigid air, pull your scarf tighter around your neck and blow air our your nose because winter had made its way inside and froze your nostril hairs. This misery is looming on the horizon.

Luckily, fall in New England is amazing. The morning air, filled with sun, has a bit of a chill, but by mid-morning has gave way to beautiful low 70s air. Somedays in SC reminded me of fall in MA and it always made me a bit nostalgic. Fall has a distinct smell and feeling. Smell of warmth and sun and burning leaves, occasionally a woodstove. Every time the weather is right and the same smell is there, it takes me back to my old field hockey glory days, the epitome of fall. Maybe that is why I love the season so much. 

This fall will be a bit different, the past winter, spring and summer, have all been without my new husband. Just as summer officially gives way to fall, Hubby will be coming home to me for 18 days, about 1/3 of the fall season. Hubby has never experienced the fall in New England, the beauty of the red, orange, yellow leaves, the smell, the temperature. 

I was never one to wish summer away, but this summer is a bit different. I still try not to see ugly winter rearing its head on the horizon, but I am focused on fall. How glorious it will be. To spend one of Massachusetts' most wonderful seasons with my Hubby. It can't come soon enough.