For the next few days, we’ll experience high temperatures in the 80’s. I’m back in t-shirts, and the house returns to air conditioning. Seasons in Pennsylvania teach me that during times of seasonal transition, we might swing widely to extremes before settling in. Heat in October. Ice on the leaves. Snow on the daffodils. Frost on the tomatoes. It’s been this way for as long as I’ve lived here. It’s like Pennsylvania can’t make up its mind sometimes and it wants the best of both worlds. There’s something playful about it.
I exit the English Department with a student dressed for the beach, and we bask in the warm sunlight filtering through the just-changing golden and red leaves. “I wish this had been the weather during the White Out,” she says, referring to the freezing cold game we all suffered through weeks ago. I agreed, but then I remembered how much I longed for cooler days and loved the return to fall.
Back and forth, back and forth. I settle into unpredictability. Colder days will surely come. But maybe they wont.