"I grieved the end of summer last year but hardly prepared for its eventual return …"

This world trades in Suddenlies. For the longest time, stuff stays the same, as if stuck. Then suddenly, everything changes. Spring this year seemed to take her own sweet time to come, carrying Winter's frozen water for weeks and weeks before finally melting into herself. Likewise, Spring has suddenly become Summer six full weeks before Summer was scheduled to arrive. The neighbor kids run barefoot down the same street snow covered just a week ago. The yard, dormant then, turned bright green overnight. The season hasn't changed yet, but some Suddenlies sure showed up.

Boredom might be a natural manifestation of a deep disbelief in Suddenlies. I understand how anyone might conclude that they're stuck within an unchanging scenario. Senses scream the same sonorous sound for weeks and weeks. The scene just beyond the window pane fades to a persistent beige. Darkness reigns more than half of every day and some days, the sun hardly rises and seems already set by noon. Winter and early Spring seem like a big cocoon, with me a captive grub inside. I might just as well stay comatose through the thick of it since nothing ever seems to change. No need to closely monitor any such persistent same-old same-old.

I think in straight lines, occasionally in lazy curves, but the world thinks exclusively exponentially. This produces surprising swoops and dips, trajectories I only rarely correctly anticipate. The world throws sinker balls where the bottom falls out and curves where the glide path swerves like a barn swallow attracted by invisible prey. I cannot foresee the way a change might overtake me. They always seem to have suddenly appeared. They discredit my certainty, reminding me that the unexpected really does rule. I hold no tools to successfully anticipate such exponentiation. My straight-line concerns never seem to learn, no matter how many Suddenlies surprise and delight them. Suddenlies remain bright-shinies emerging from a ho-hum background.

Please refrain from counseling me to expect the unexpected because nobody can. I might bolster against some thief in the night but I cannot know which thief or which night until after I survey the damage the following morning. I take some solace in knowing I'm blameless but also some grief for more deeply experiencing my own innate cluelessness. I am like a wasp in a wasp trap, able to fly in but unable to fly up and out unless some suddenly surprisingly springs me. I seem incapable of anticipating such salvation no matter how many previous ones I've suddenly, surprisingly survived.

Gestation continues until it ends, inevitably at some inconvenient time. I might have been whining for weeks about the damned weather, but when it breaks I'm left hanging in mid-air, suddenly without grounds for any well-practiced complaining. Spring cleaning begins feeling a little bit behind, for more winter seemed almost certain to visit before I could invest in gardening supplies again. Now I'm trying to catch up, after having been caught out once again. I grieved the end of summer last year but hardly prepared for its eventual return, its sudden appearance within such a recalcitrant Spring.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #AnotherWinter, #PureSchmaltz