It's been two years since we moved...
Or: 730 days, 104 weeks, 24 months, 8 seasons
The day this is published, it will have been two years since we moved from our beloved house in Plymouth to the Isle of Wight, both in the UK. Other ways of counting that time are by days, weeks, months or seasons. Of all of those numbers, the one that means the most to me is the number of seasons. The other numbers have issues for me:
730 days are far too big a number of things to remember specific days or comprehend the total.
104 weeks: the same—too big a number to keep track of in my head.
Years: even though the number two is small, those two (like all the others) have either flown by, or dragged on, depending.
And months get jumbled together.
But seasons: seasons are time periods that we feel in our bodies. The seasonal markers infuse every sense, so we can’t mistake them. We notice their particular smells: the surprising perfume of sweet blossoms, acrid drying leaves, salty moist air, cinnamon baking. The light outside shifts from bright to slanted, to dim and back to pale light with pastel colouring. We hear birdsong changing and winds shifting, annual music fills our hearts, the crunch of footsteps in frozen grass, the sluicing sounds of skis in snow (or wellies in squishy mud!)
The fruits and vegetables in the market change colours and shapes and we eagerly anticipate each of the seasonal specialties: root vegetables to roast slowly in the oven, and sweet winter citrus. With spring comes the delight of tender pale green vegetables: asparagus and early lettuces, and eventually the bounty of summers with sweet fruits once again delighting our palates, and dripping down our chins.
Each season I remember the activities that are best accomplished then: picnics with family at beaches along one coast or another in spring and autumn, hikes in the summer in high mountains, or strolls through muddy downs to a pub for a warming lunch.
Home has been in many of these places over my lifetime. And yes, I am so very lucky to be able to say that, I realise. I am lucky to love the life I am living, while I am in it. So many things along the way haven’t gone to plan exactly, but that’s what’s made it unpredictably enjoyable (sometimes more from a distance after several years!)
We’ve had two Christmas trees in our new-to-us (but 150-year-old) home. The other seasons are half-counted, since we have been away for parts of each of the two summers, winters and autumns. I'm already looking forward to the increasing light and promising warmth of spring; however, there are many lovely friends to see in the meantime, so I’m not going to rush past those. I’m going to savour the winter gatherings yet to come.
Each season has had it’s memories attached to particular weather or light or sounds and certainly tastes, so I’m hoping these events will stay firmly imprinted in my mind. Hot canyons: that was summer in the desert. Bracing swim in the sea: late summer at home. For now, I can still remember the time of year we met friends or visited a particular place because I can also remember the light or the temperature or the foods we ate. Yep, for me it’s almost always food memories!
A few years ago my son gave me a wonderful digital photo frame that rotates photos of our family and friends. We add new ones when we’ve had visitors and after each trip. Most exciting is when my kids upload new ones from their adventures, and they show up as surprise treasures when the photos scroll through. It’s another way we remember our loved ones and our adventures to mark the passing seasons. I may not remember the day, the week, or even the month, but I will remember the season.
On our daily walks we track the changing tides, the angle of the sun, the shifting of the sands and cobbles, sometimes the rapid shift of the cliffs downwards (!), and always the lack or abundance of tourists. In our meagre garden we are slowly trying to plant it up after a year of removing excessive built-in structure and elderly overgrown plants from previous owners. This year we hope to reinstall plants that change with the seasons, and are also hearty enough to survive changing climate conditions. Having a garden is all about managing hope for the future.
Measuring time by seasons has just the right cadence for me: enough change to notice and not get bored, but not so much that you miss it, or you can’t keep up.
What about you? How do you best measure time? Or do you not bother? Do you use a garden to ground you in seasons, or have enough landscape around you to notice the changing foliage and other biota? What other seasonal changes do you track and notice? Or is this all a bit of a strange thing to even contemplate? Do let me know in the comments—I always love to hear!
Before I go, I’ll leave you with a musical version of tracking a year by minutes, via the song “Seasons of Love”, from the movie Rent:
As always, thanks so much for showing up here and reading!
See you next week!
xx Sabrina
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As Amy said, your posts are always wonderfully thought provoking Sabrina - thank you! For me it’s definitely the seasons...and in fact my love of what I think of as “classic” seasons led me to move across country from California and stay in the eastern US for good! Snow in the winter, blooms in the spring, hot humid weather in the summer, crisp red/orange leaves and apples in the fall, all of them keep me aware and appreciative. And I love the reminder that embracing whatever the day brings rather than wishing it were different (more or less cold/hot, still/windy, etc etc) is the path to enjoyment. Once again, the joy of being present in the present!
Happy 2024!
Since I live where the seasons are quite distinct, at least for Winter and Summer (Fall and Spring are just polar opposites, timing-wise) it is sometimes difficult to remember how each played out. In the Winter its big snow years and low years; 2024 is starting out the latter, and, Summers are either hot and smokey or pleasant with only a heat spell or two. After our recent remodel, this year I was able to put the veggie garden back in and had to wage war on the rabbits which we didn't have in the past. Their presence will used as a reference moving forward. Looking at the past I've used the seasons I competed in skijoring, volunteered at World Cup skiing events, hip injury, knee injuries (ACL replacement and nip-tuck cleaning) for the Winter. Summer, bike races that I competed in or organized. On a much grander scale I've used relocations, job changes and the years we've had each of our 9 Bernese Mountain Dogs (over 32 years). It is a good exercise to test your memory looking that far into the past. I try not to dwell too much on the past seasons but always look forward to the future, planning trips and researching the next bike race. I can't control the weather so when its time to plant the veggies then I will. In general, I love the seasons as each has a uniqueness to them and how different they can be; long, short, intense, mild, wet, dry, etc. And I look forward to them as they approach.