The last couple years of my full time RV lifestyle, I have dreaded spring as the harbinger of summer heat. But of course it isn't healthy for someone to despise a sunny day. Clearly, I had gotten too much of a good thing and my bio-rhythms were screwed up. It seemed like a "real" winter might make me whole again.
That was the theory last autumn. I think it has worked, since I'm actually experiencing some pleasure watching this spring bust out. Dogs are famous for hiding their true feelings behind a stoical mask, but if you read between the lines you might guess they felt the same thing on a recent hike:
Perhaps the reader is surprised that it took so long to come up with the "medicinal winter" approach. After all, you'd think that an early retiree who sells his house, becomes a full time RVer and boondocks a lot, would think independently enough to avoid the "palm trees blowing in warm winter breezes" escapism and all the other cliches that besot retirement culture.
Consider it a testament to the herd-like tendencies of our species. I didn't come up with the medicinal winter approach by reading something or even thinking about it that much. It's as if, when something goes wrong, a person crawls into their own skin until they discover some ancestral instincts and folk wisdom hiding there: winters are not supposed to be warm.
I will miss the clean crispness of frosty mornings and the architecture of desert plants that are coated with snow.
When I walk the dogs through their grassy field at sunrise, it's as if glints of reflected frost-light gambol over the field. But now these sprites lose their crystal-light under the warming sun, and sublime into the flitting sound-sparkles of birds.
I won't start rhapsodizing about spring flowers. My central nervous system is simply not chromo-centric enough. It is the smell of spring that I like most. You can peal off the protective layers of winter and wear warmer air, instead. You needn't brace against the air anymore; just let it soothe your skin, like it does to the sun-soaked ground.
