Cold Noses/ Shiny Brows

Fall in Ohio (or in Michigan, where I lived before) is a time of chilling weather and shortening days. I don’t appreciate these changes, because they herald even colder and darker days in the months ahead.

But fall is also traditionally a season of rituals and captured moments of time passing: attending football games, apple picking,

and preparing for Thanksgiving.

And these are things I deeply cherish.

But this year, it is neither fall, nor are there the usual rituals. The weather is not getting cooler; it’s getting warmer. The days are not getting shorter; they’re getting longer. Buckeye football is literally a world away (but not totally, thanks to the wonders of modern technology). I had to make a special request to the butcher to order a turkey for Thanksgiving.

It is spring in Queensland, you see, and the months ahead will bring heat and beach time and all things summer (n.b: I love summer).

Oh, and Christmas. Christmas will be in summer, a fact I have a hard time wrapping my snow-conditioned brain around.

Time is passing without the familiar markers. Every time I’m asked, I have to think twice about what month we are in, and where we are. It’s doing strange things to my sense of place.

Time is a strange construct indeed, friends. Never has that been as clear to me as it is right now. So if you see me pulling out the ear muffs and lighting a fire, please, someone, remind me that it’s almost summer in Queensland. And yes, that it’s November too.