Constancy and Surprise
A Passage
Somehow, after living in the same climate for almost thirty years, I am still surprised by just how cold the first days of Autumn can feel. After months of running about very happily in a t-shirt, suddenly even a thick wool sweater is not really sufficient insurance against the biting wind. I happen to love this weather. Even so, I feel vaguely indignant, as though Mother Nature might’ve given us a bit more warning before chucking us head-first into the icebox. But then, there really has been plenty of warning. What, after all, is meant by maturing berries and changing leaves, if not that the hour to hunker down is nigh? But these are visual cues, the which, no matter how studiously we attend to their meanings, are but poor preparation for the cold which must be felt.
How does such regular, consistent change catch me always by surprise? No doubt there is a scientific reason—a suboptimal wiring in our brains, perhaps, makes us poor judges of future sensation, even when the sensation is one we have felt many times before. For myself, I wonder at this constant renewal, and remain supremely grateful that such a momentous occasion does not grow old or stale.