It is amazing how my ideas of the seasons, the natural cycles accompanied by Earth’s journey around the sun are so shaped by growing up in the Midwestern US. Even after dwelling in the desert for 8 years, I frown at the shoots of wildflowers reaching green tendrils up to the sky in January and exclaim No! Its too soon! Of course, what is wild and natural can be neither early nor late, but there is a part of me that still exists in Minnesota, that still appraises within the constructs of that world: long winters with temperatures that plunge well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit Short, glimmery summers that pass with a breath of humidity, the buzz of mosquitoes and then suddenly are gone. The sacred two week race between the 15th of May and memorial day to plant seeds if there is to be any hope of tomatoes in August.
retrieved from http://www.anotherpartofme.com/the-end-of-seasons/
The day I saw the beginning of wildflowers there was a high of -5°F in Minneapolis, and I think it was that part of me, still shivering in the North, that couldn’t accept my new home, the new rhythms of life. Barry Lopez writes on how disconcerting life in the Arctic is for those of us dominated by the simple truths of temperate living: the sun rising in the East, setting in the West, day after day. It is true in Tucson, albeit to a lesser degree. I get frustrated with Midwestern transplants that complain about the lack of seasons in the desert. There are seasons, magical ones, but they aren’t our seasons. I understand this is really what they miss: the comforting truths of fall leaves crunching underfoot in early October. The heavy snows of March. The breeze off the lake cutting through the humidity of July. And we can adjust to new places, humans are adaptable afterall. I tend to lettuce and chard during these months while Minnesota is under a blanket of cold and snow and ice, I open the door and let warm January breezes pass through the house. But there is still the part of us gazing at the world through the eyes of our childhood, from the perspective of where we came.
born by a river 
definitely…for me the smell of the jasmine flower, and suntan lotion is childhood / home..
i absolutely love the cycle of the seasons. such a beautiful, physical reminder of the cycles, hopes, valleys, mountains peaks, joys, & trials of our journey in life.
Your perspective, as always gives me food for thought. thank you for sharing yourself so earnestly.
Alas, even living in the same area all my life, the seasons are not the same. Daffodils and star magnolias blooming and open windows in January were not part of my childhood. We are constantly adapting those childhood perspectives, adjusting to what is real. If only those adjustments could be as benign as the ones we make for the seasons.