The In-between Days

By

Bob LaTorre

I walked out of the house the other night and it was difficult to decide if it was a spring night or a winter night. The wind had a defiant winter chill to it but in between gusts the air had a distinct feeling of spring. These late winter early spring days come about each year and I have grown to call them the in between day. They come about at each change of season.

In the fall they cause us to try to hang on to the fading days of summer, while we can see the leaves changing color and the nights are no longer sultry. We also resist the change from fall to winter. Look at how many of us are still wearing light weight clothing after winter winds make them uncomfortable.

It is very human to resist change and the resistance to seasonal change is also very human. It is also bad for our psyche. Many people still believe that the change of seasons is the time for the greatest number of common colds. People with ulcers often equate their attacks to seasonal changes. Our moods tend to be the lowest at these in between season moments and now as I wait impatiently for spring I find my glow at its lowest point.

But it was after all, the optimists, who invented the clock and calendar. We know that each season has built with it the promise of the future.

Those promises are what keep us going. It is the promises of better things to come which is the basis of all faith. Christian teachings tell us that this world is merely a preparation for the longer, better life to come. The trials of this world like the between season times are merely a test period.

The basic psychology of humans is designed to take us through the transition times. What was it that Scarlet O’Hara said at the end of “Gone With the Wind”   “I won’t think about it today I’ll wait until tomorrow.”  More recently our hero little orphan Annie Sang about “Tomorrow…Tomorrow, I love you tomorrow you are always a day away.”

In our own lives, in addition to our impatience with the change of season we continue to run into transition periods which seen interminable. Waiting for Christmas and summer vacation as a child, the last days of high school and college and the final days before a wedding seemed to go on forever. All of these between days tend to cause that high anxiety of waiting for a change.

At my age, while not anxious for it to happen I can feel myself beginning to slip into those days between maturity and “Old Age.” Just as I could feel the hint of spring in the air of a winter night I can surely feel the hint of age in my body and more importantly in my mind. While this is not a change which I look forward to, it is one which will come.

Perhaps what I am feeling is my mind and body getting ready for my next season. Just as the weather gives us some hints to get us ready for a seasonal change it may be that we are programmed to make change of mental clothing. Our minds and bodies are saying to us you are entering a new time in life. Well ready or not here it comes. I will get old just as sure as the next few weeks will bring spring.

I guess I can’t be too old if I can still look forward to spring and summer as I do.

Old or young when that first real spring day comes I will be in a shirt sleeve mood one filled with a …rosy glow.