"The first week of August hangs at the very top of the summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after."
-Natalie Babbit, Tuck EverlastingThis paragraph begins one of my favorite novels. Each summer I read it. Who wouldn't want to keep reading to find out what things the characters felt led to do and how they were sorry? And doesn't Babbit capture the week we just went through in all its humid glory?
I'm recognizing more and more how my reading and even music listening can follow seasons. I don't read Wuthering Heights or The Lord of the Rings every Christmas, though many do. I don't read mass market paperback romances on the beach, though many readers spend their vacations cracking the covers of Harlequins. I do gravitate toward weightier books in the winter and some of my favorites, like Tuck Everlasting, are best enjoyed during the sweltering months. There are books I read while I'm writing a manuscript and books I avoid, sometimes because they're so good they make me want to put my head in a smoothie maker. But I digress.
There are some songs with organs and horns that are filled with warmth and light; those are best for the winter. Certain rock songs will always remind me of driving along winding country roads at dusk with the windows down. Isn't it funny how various forms of our creation--music, literature, painting, cooking, and more--coincide with Creation?
Does your favorite form of magic follow the seasons?
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