Zuihitsu: Love through the Seasons
Summer is a time of passion. In summer, there is too much of everything--too much heat, too much humidity, too much natural violence. Summer doesn't bring rain, it brings thunderstorms, lightning storms, tornados and hurricanes. All this has a strange effect; the memories of summer are washed in Technicolor brilliance, and love in summer is just as scorching as the heat of a hungry desert. It is as if you have stood in the middle of a freshly paved, black road, wearing nothing but black, arms spread wide and face raised to the sky, absorbing every bit of heat, then redirecting it to your beloved. Passion is the love of summer, as cracklingly brilliant as the lightning so common in the sky.
Fall is a time of realization, when love becomes less one of passion and more one of contemplation. The heat of summer fades, and passion seems less striking; the cool of winter beckons through time, and lovers turn to each other less sexually, more in words, more in the comfort of a touch. The little things stand out as summer's passion fades away, and as the first frost comes, sharpening every blade of grass with its white coat, so is the view of your lover sharpened.
Winter is the time of burrowing love. Cold, snow, and dark haunt your steps outside; everywhere seems a place of muted lights, of beckoning warmth, and inside becomes a place to retreat. So becomes love in winter--a place of retreat, a place of warmth built entirely of the two of you, and to be shared only between you two. This is a time of dark nights under blankets, watching the flickering movie; of long stays in bed, an unconscious refusal to leave your burrow and face the outside. Lovers become intertwined with each other, weave themselves together, in a way the fall only suggested, and the summer never prophesied. Is there passion in the winter? Yes, but less like lightning, and more like a slow burning fire, always hot, but now, suddenly, lasting.
Spring brings green, rebirth, and an emergence from the burrow of winter, stepping into the oddly new light of the sun. Like trees with new branches, and perenials with new shoots, love in spring brings new growth to you and your lover, a seed planted in summer that lay dormant until this time. Spring is also a time of new loves, of shy loves, of loves that grow without the overwhelming passion summer brings. They are sweet and gentle, quiet and shy, and should they pass the tests of the seasons, will grow beyond the spring they began in.
