Weather as a Literary Phenomenon

Today is sunny and warm. I took a break from commenting on students’ essays to sit in the sun. It’s seasonably warm (for the frozen Tundra). Even without looking at the calendar, though, I can feel fall. The quality of the sunshine is different, and so is the air.

In spring, there’s an underlying coolness to the air. We’re opening up doors, uncovering ourselves from the winter cold, emerging from blankets and layers of clothing. We’re like sheep free of their heavy wool. The ground is boggy and anything that’s growing is fighting fiercely for its bit of earth. The insects are frenzied as they lay their millions of eggs. We’re frenzied as we spray poison, plan the good weather projects, and calculate how many days of sunshine we are entitled to. In fall, there’s an underlying warmth to the air. The insects have done their work, the plants are figuring that they managed the program (leaf-bloom-seed) and can rest. The green and white plates of Queen Anne’s lace have curled into brown bird nests. We’re either still frenzied (How much squash am I supposed to make into zucchini bread?) or we’re thinking back over the summer. The air has a golden clearness, like white grape juice, or white wine.

Season, to be obvious, plays such an important part in stories. It’s much easier to send a prowler through the yards in October (dark by 6 p.m.) than in June (dark around 9:30 or so). Night to day’s ratio has increased. I can sift snow over my characters and then, if they are not showing enough fortitude or misery, ship them into January and slip a couple degrees out of the thermometer. We can feel sorry for the homeless much more easily when it’s cold, than in June when we must meet curfew and they are free to the starry nights. On the local highways and byways, we say there are two seasons: winter and road construction. Those also lend themselves to story telling.

My mom used to say that she hated fall because “everything dies.” It rests. Some of it goes underground for a while, some of it turns its face elsewhere as the planets and stars revolve above us. And some of the vegetation begins plotting its revenge of next year.
One of the things I think about doing “someday” is making a list of memorable literary events, in the seasons they occur, and considering the season-life relationship. Not every character dies in fall, though the drawing to the end of the growing season offers obvious parallels to human life spans. Not every baby is born in spring, and not every happy marriage takes place in June. [That cliché: “If you’re married in June, you’ll always be a bride. Who wants to always be a bride?] Every season offers something to the writer. No better words in the English language, Henry James commented, than summer afternoon. Maybe he was considering the warm afternoons free of visitors, free to him as he dictated his stories; maybe he was thinking of the tea table.