From hill and cloud and heaven,
The hues of evening died
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside

So here’s an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer’s parting sighs
~A. E. Housman from “When Summer’s End is Nighing”

Whatever season we’re in, I’m content only for a few weeks, then want to move on to the next.

Rather than swelter in stifling summer heat, I yearn for cool autumn breezes and bright colors.

Rather than watch trees stripped bare by those breezes, I dream of white landscapes and cozy evenings spent indoors.

Rather than my fingers aching with cold during chores, my heart aches for fragrant swelling buds and the growing grasses of spring when I no longer need to carry hay bales to the horses.

Then, as spring becomes too fulsome to the point of overwhelm (and my allergies kick in), I circle back to longing for lingering summer sunrises and sunsets with days that seem to last forever.

I’m hopeless, it is true – never quite content with where I am in the here and now, always itching for whatever is coming on the horizon.

Maybe by the time I reach such happily-ever-aftering, I will realize every day, every month, every season was all gift, all grace, all grand and all so very generous. Good things don’t have to end for another to begin; they are to be cherished year round.