Winds of Change

My first autumn in Thailand I heard time after time that the heat and humidity would soon be over. We just had to wait for the day for it all to change. There would be a steady wind, dark clouds, and a hint of cool that day, and by the next day, winter would be here. Everyone told me this, but how could I believe such a drastic prediction (even though I had been there all of 3 weeks and they had lived their entire lives there)? But when I walked out of class one day and the wind had picked up, the clouds had accumulated, and there was a distinct breath of cool air somewhere out there, I waited to see if it would really happen.

Now, winter in Thailand is hardly "winter" in the Midwest sense, or even the North Carolina sense. But the change in the air is such a relief from the heat (and, I would learn after my first rainy season, rain) that it hit me as hard as the first dumping of snow, the green grass not to be seen again for months. And that it comes in a rush of a day or maybe two makes the contrast all the more stark. I was basking in the cool relief, and baffled that it had somehow arrived with such little notice.

When I experienced my second autumn, I was more prepared and less skeptical. It was later than the previous year, well into November, but it arrived in the same way. That year the arrival of winter coincided with the realization that I would be living my first years as an adult away from home, family, and many friends. Friends back home would be easing into jobs with health benefits, grad programs, relationships with potential of marriage, apartments and even houses they would fund by themselves. This may no longer be the case (see last week's NYT magazine article) but at the time I felt isolated and longed for the comfort of a paycheck, a syllabus, a box of furniture to assemble.

As the fall unfolded and I began to know more students, neighbors, workers at the market, and my lifeline of friends who were also volunteering post-college-graduation, the changes that seemed insurmountable when the wind was rushing through the rambatan trees outside my house held less emotional and spiritual space for me. The life I left behind held less of my imagination than the experiences I was in the midst of living. I began to trust that the relationships that held together while I was away would be those that held together through my adult life. Hindsight has proved just that.

This year our September has has a Thai feeling to it. Just a week ago I took the boys to the outdoor pool and I sank my ever-expanding belly into the cool water with a breath of relief. It had been sticky all day and the pool, once again, offered relief that lasted beyond our swim. The boys went down the slide, Elliott even jumped off the board, and they made their rounds of water play -- in the shallow end, in the deep, and then off to the sand box (repeat). A cold front moved through at the end of the week as Elliott and Dietrich exchanged their swimsuits for rain gear and their t-shirts for sweatshirts.

Today the wind blew small branches off trees and the streets are littered with leaves and acorns. The clouds hung as if they were from November. The windows in our house are open and the air is crisp and clean, but we had to close one during lunch as the wind gave us goose bumps. It seems only fitting that the world seems to be changing around us even as our day-to-day world is changing in our household. The boys are off to Kindergarten each morning, and in a few short weeks we will welcome another family member. Somehow, the seasons changing with us has encouraged me, and opened me to the wonder of change. Something in the crisp air and powerful breeze has given me strength to watch my little boys venture out on their own a few hours a day and given me even more excitement about welcoming another child into our lives. Not that I wouldn't mind a few more days of summer...