500 Days of Summer

Summer time. Isn't it such a grand time of year? Well, technically it is spring now that I'm in Utah. And it was snowing up a storm around here all day today. But still. The regular school year is out and now is the time for making floral arrangements, learning how to make maps, and hopefully lots of rock climbing! Because of my upbringing in the tropics, I have never quite known what it was like to truly have a summer. People seem to think to live in "paradise" is to live in a perpetual summer. Unfortunately, it is easy to forget the good weather and gorgeous landscape when you have year-round schooling and are always on the watch for bugs and other critters getting into your things.

Rock climbing in Rock Canyon, 2009

Don't get me wrong: I am grateful to have grown up in such an amazing place. But I was living in a bubble, and I never got to enjoy the wonders of the seasons until this year. Even living in Los Angeles didn't bring a tangible change in the weather throughout the year. When I was young, I remember some controversy over the standardized Stanford Achievement Tests used to measure our skills as elementary schoolers well before the No Child Left Behind policy was conceived. There were questions on the test which asked about "common knowledge" of the world in which we live. The thing is the subject of these questions was often the four seasons. There was no way for any of us students in Hawaii to know what snow looks or feels like or what time of year the leaves fall off trees. When I moved to the mainland for college, I was so utterly excited to see signs of seasons and changes in the world around me. I was so happy every time I saw a squirrel on campus at USC. I was ecstatic to see snow for the second time ever when Josh taught me to snowboard at Mountain High in Wrightwood, CA. I was amazed at all the colors of fall this past year in Provo. There's just something magical about these cycles the world flows in and out of so gracefully.

As I approach my very first full year of living in Utah, it is such a wonder to experience the change in all four seasons. Despite having allergies for the first time, it is so worth it to be able to see the leaves budding on trees and flowers blooming on empty branches which were just a week or two ago only the skeletons of trees. Now I understand a little more about what that SAT test was talking about in grade school. Now I can relate better to books and art, and I have such a better understanding of the world around me. How important it is to understand these things, especially as the world becomes increasingly globalized! I welcome spring and summer into my life the joy as I now know how wonderful it is to feel the warmth of the sun after a "bitter" winter.

We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature. (Thoreau)