So, spring arrived today. If you could see the happiness on my face, you would run away like a cartoon – no joke. Having lived my entire life in São Paulo, where we have only glimpses of real cold weather, I can’t, by no means, see the enjoyment of a season that marks that the already hot weather will get even hotter.

But Destiny is not that bad, for it gave us a last week of rain and wind, when we can say our goodbyes to cozy blankets and fluffy socks.

A normal person would think that, at the age of 35, I would be used to 365 days of summer. Sadly, this state of mind was planted in my head when I was just a little girl. At school, they teach you the four seasons with images: a bare tree symbolises winter, a tree with flowers represents spring, a tree with fruit shows what happens during summer, and a tree with brown leaves marks the four months of autumn.

Since that day this is what my brain believes. South America doesn’t have 4 seasons like on the northern side of the planet, we have only two: the dry season, and the wet season, and no one teaches us that – I myself learned this a couple years ago, during a podcast. Although… knowing we have only two seasons doesn’t make it real to my mind, that insists on spring, summer, winter and fall being as they were taught to me as a toddler.

Anne Rios

(amodafala@gmail.com)