In southern Ontario more than fifty years ago my mother would change the window coverings twice a year to suit the seasons: in the spring and in the fall. It was a ritual of my childhood, one I continued when grown and making my own home, varying at times across varying circumstance of children and time and inclination, but…continuing.
When I moved to the west coast nearly twenty years ago the tradition carried on.
Until last autumn. Those are the spring and summer curtains still on the living room windows. I swish them open in the morning and swish them closed at night with a feeling of having settled, finally, into an acceptance of west coast climate, one of the major reasons I moved here. Maybe we will get snow and cold and frost and ice again. It may last for a bit. Maybe even a week or two. But perhaps I have finally rid myself of the dread of it lasting for months, of the ground freezing and the birds being silent, of doors and windows being closed tight. It took awhile for the memory of those forty-four winters to thaw…