Season’s Apples

Probably the main reason I love living here is that it is such a sensuous place. Given the season’s abundance of tasty pears and apples right in her very own back yard, dog undoubtedly agrees.

Certainly our community experiences fear, disappointment, illness, and death, same as humans and animals anywhere. However, the soft curves of the hills in which we dwell, limitless starry nights, clean water, vegetables, fruits and berries, eatable right off the tree or vine, makes the description “paradise” to be not much of an exaggeration.

Situated at such a latitude and elevation, near extremes of what this planet offers weather-wise, from blizzards to hurricanes, visit here. Over the past half-century, I’ve stood on the same hill and felt temperatures from over 100 to below minus 20 degrees.

Tropical islands show much less variation. In December, the average temperature may be 86, in July 88. In deserts, the monotony of monochromatic, arid weather is punctuated by blossoms of powerful colors, though the interval between the rainfalls that provoke their appearance may be years, decades, or centuries.

I imagine people living near the equator tune to the narrow contrasts there, and experience the subtleties of that climate every bit as distinctly and pleasurably as do I those here on the hill. Wherever anyone is on this planet, day darkens to night and night yields to dawn. Yet even this common occurrence, dependent on where you are, ranges in length from hours to months.

There can come a beneficial insight from the process of imagining what it would feel like to live in a different body, or in a faraway place, or to appreciate current circumstances from the perspective of longer than one human lifetime.