Four Seasons and Relativity

I guess it is that time of the year.

It is either summer or winter, either spring or autumn.

Or maybe, where you are, every day is the same, no changes in the weather, always warm.

Maybe, always cold.

I have lived through all four of them.

I have heavy winter coats.I have opened and closed my eyes quickly to keep them from freezing.

I have beach outfits and light dresses for warm summers.

I have been so cold and so hot.

It is a sensation, not a feeling.

Or maybe sometimes it is a feeling—the feeling of your skin burning because it is so hot, or so cold.

And then there are the middle points, the equinoxes, the transitions, the edge between one season and the next.

I was in Tokyo once. It was autumn, but it was still warm and damp.

I walked to visit the Capsule Tower."Do Not Enter" signs covered the entrance and its sides, so I could only look at it from the outside.They wanted to tear it down. Asbestos, it seemed.

I walked back to the hotel under an umbrella. I stopped at a red traffic light among office workers, all dressed in white shirts and dark blue trousers or skirts.

It was that time of day when the light is fading but it is not dark yet, and your eyes are trying to adjust.

The traffic light spoke:"Don't walk."; "Don't walk."; "Don't walk."

Then:"Walk!""Walk!""Walk!"

And all of us crossed the street beneath our umbrellas, quickly, to the rhythm of "walk... walk... walk."

The true cold I felt was in Canada, in February. But the most beautiful view I have ever seen was from the sky, inside an airplane above the Arctic Circle. What a spectacle—water and ice, colours and textures.

Then there was a spring in London. The world went into lockdown. The streets were empty. The shops were empty, and their windows displayed naked mannequins, so long and so thin.

And then Rome—or perhaps another city in Italy. A city that felt like a museum.

It wasn't that hot, even though it was summer. The manificent sculptures of voluptuous women were still standing there, proud and gorgeous.

Time changes.

Now everything is relative.