The Seasons of Yearning (Me) | Nonfiction Honorable Mention 2023 (University of Wyoming Creative Writing Contest)
—Spring—
—I can feel it in my bones that the end of my school year is drawing near. Whenever I sit near a classroom window, sometimes I witness green patches of grass or flowers. So many pink colors, all vivid of pollen and wisteria, roll across the hills in the distance, budding and springing up upon patches of grass. I roll my fingers like a caterpillar across my desktop, wanting to not move from the spot I’m so comfortable in, admiring the view.
Yet, C’est la Vie, the bell has sung—
(Ring! Ring! Ring! Repeat.)
—and I’m knocked from my stupor, standing up, grabbing my belongings, and saying one last goodbye to the studies I had once come to know. But a feeling hits me:
Why?
Why am I excited;
Why am I troubled?
Why am I overjoyed;
Why am I terrified?
Why?
A part of me knows I have to move on and that I have to grow up and blossom—that I will no longer be sitting in the whirlwind of Japanese, chatting with close companions, or that I’ll be in my music studies twiddling on my flute. I am ready for the change, but I’m also at a loss. I feel deep happiness but also deep sadness. The flowery laughter ringing through the halls and the clamoring of lunch hours will soon be forgotten as the years pass.
(A part of me quietly asks if I’ll even remember it.)
Outside I am greeted by my brother’s voice as we hop into our shared vehicle, the smell of pristine colors of petals disappearing with it, and drive home. Tears quietly bud the corners of my eyes, almost as if I might cry rivers that’ll turn into hailstorms of sobs to feed the growing green in nature. My brother, not at the slightest disappointed nor pitying, sends me his biggest, pearliest grin he can muster—and all I can muster, despite my current shadowed despair, is a weak grin in return.
“Cheer up, sis!”
He doesn’t know.
The loss in my heart of when he’ll go away to college, when we both do, and I’ll never have these chances with him again grips me.
He’ll go and find his place in the world, but who will I be without him?
Familiar signs of water run down the sidewalks, green showing every sign of life, and I watch to distract myself, even when reality is facing me. This season’s ripening of change brings about a feeling of newness that could be described as peaceful yearning—a rebirth of swirling and mystifying indenture. I, when reaching back home with my brother and walking up our concrete steps, took a dip by the waist, smelling a sunflower that had just peeled her soft, white petals open to greet me with a warm smile.
Everyone else is a sakura tree upon the changing of seasons, whereas I feel like a cherry blossom—looking so beautiful and ripe, yet falling apart the very next day, like this flower before me. I can all but feel the yearning of tomorrow slipping, the bleakness of a once treacherous cold melding from the warmth and peaking through the blankets of leaves on trees. The snow is peeling away—escaping light and sinking with the grass. A thought sneaks into my mind, unburdening:
“Where will I, in my midst, enjoy the birth of nature?”
But it does not come to pass as my eyes stay cast down to the sunflower.
I think to myself:
“Yes, this is it. I’m blooming. I’m awakening.”
And that is all that can ever be described when I think of Spring and her feminine, colorful beauty, whether night or day, rain or shine. For she is blooming and awakening, too.
—Summer—
I am free from my once former life—all I can see is the yellow sand in my mind’s eye, and the pristine blue sky beaming at me from above. For now, I’m sheltered beneath the familiar smell and knowledge of my family’s hut. I could never imagine myself here enjoying how the itch of the sunlight hits me like a spotlight. I sit in the warmth of a beautiful afternoon in our backyard, plopped on the patio deck attached to our swimming pool as I dip my feet in the shivering water. The coldness provides me realness, and I am jolted from my imagination—
Lions,
and tigers,
and bears,
oh my!
—and bring my knees to my chest. I glare at the pool in accusation, trying to tell it to scram before I decide to chase it out of my life forever, and then I find myself sighing deeply as a feeling hits me:
Who and what?
Who am I kidding;
Who am I plundering?
What are my new hopes;
What are my new dykes?
Who and what?
There is so much, too much to think about what I can experience in this new life of mine when the heat crosses the threshold of the sun. It all entails and bargains down to asking myself who I am; no longer will I be considered a “teenager,” but the world will see me as an adult with decisions and priorities to make.
The drenched sun beats down on my skin—burning me and causing redness to flair my cheekbones. I think too far ahead, possibilities that only exist as part of being a woman. A portion of me has fear—this yearning for the unknown. Everyone seems to have it all figured out; they all donned crowns of yellow sunflowers, whereas I was displayed amongst yellow tulips. They were warm to the touch, whereas I scorched and yearned for something more that could be similar to an ocean complimenting her sand—to find my purpose of who I am supposed to be.
I am all at once confused by my paranoia, and I turn my head over my shoulder to find my mother, smiling with this cheeriness and warm red in her cheeks, coming onto the patio deck with me. She is more than eager to sun tan, and I don’t smell the usual sunscreen ointment I usually slather myself with. I am all at once whipped with a parched tongue.
“Why don’t you get us some tea?”
She doesn’t know.
It comes with fervor, and I realize she doesn’t know how I feel. I’m suddenly afraid as I bristle, trying to tame the heat; yet heat blisters, and it pools water, sweat under the skin, knowing this family will never come again.
I yearn for the shade—or perhaps the slip of an ice cube down my throat.
The scorching heat of the desert sands could never compare to how downright miserable I feel in my clothes. I think of other things besides the sun bearing down on the world and of how it makes me want to hide from it; I think of a cold breeze, a drenched bed, a drink; I think of something that will keep me from collapsing into the pool.
I feel like a panting lion, yet I know the satisfaction will come soon. I skimpier off as my mother instructs, and I rush over the baking concrete as I try not to let a scream whisper from my mouth. I know there will be another day when clouds roll in, and the rain will flow down my back and give me that relief. Yet, the warmth never disappears, nor does the chapped skin or lips crack like dried dirt. I enter the kitchen, this feeling of my skin wanting to melt off unpleasant, and peer outside to the glowing patio deck from the sun's light as I find relief in dancing my toes on the cool floor. A thought sneaks into my mind, unburdening:
“Where will I, in my midst, enjoy the fruits of the heat?”
But it does not come to pass as I stare out the window to the backyard.
I think to myself:
“Yes, this is it. I’m scorching. I’m burning.”
And that is all that can ever be described when I think of Summer and his masculine, powerful heat rays of desire, whether night or day, rain or shine. For he is scorching and burning, too.
—Autumn—
I have never felt more nervous as the warmth and cold meld—stirring a wild dance of leaves and showing off trees donning their dresses of a sunset. It is a change I am tempted to run from and towards; being on a new canvas of Earth I have yet to define by the burning of charcoal on my fingers will prove to me if I am worthy of this new foe. I move all my items into my new college room, my new home in this unfamiliar space. I can smell mildew, the rain and once-green soon transforming into sparks of
orange-
red-
yellow-
dust where I live. Tomorrow, I begin my days making new friends and memories while being accompanied by loneliness. Tomorrow, I begin my days in the slight breeze of the colorful leaves, where I shall pervade around with a band claimed as the best in the land. But a feeling hits me:
How and where?
How will I be needed;
How will I be wanted?
Where will I live;
Where will I rise?
How and where?
I then lay in my bed, pondering everything, and the little devil on my shoulder whispers horrible things to me—from doubt to sheer imperfection. My heart is racing and galloping in my veins and making it hard to grab ahold of sleep remotely. Who will I be to these people I have only just discovered? Would the people I meet be glamorous and old-fashioned? Would I find out who I am, or would I be more of a pick-me-up, hand-me-down daughter that would only be one faint blip in existence amongst my reliving fall?
I do not wish to wake up and find myself where I am not familiar, and yet that is the one mistake I make. I am aroused at an hour that feels long and gone as if it does not exist; time seems like nothing more than a foreign memory. The taste of dirt is on my tongue, and licking my teeth makes me wince as if I took a bite from a crunchy leaf.
I roll myself out of the comfort of sheets, calling my father to hear his voice one last time. I repeatedly ask numb statements and breathe in the air to be amongst Autumn and her loveliness to calm my thundering pulse. I stare out the window of my room floor on level ten, considered the perfect bird’s eye view. I can see the trees on Sorority Row, where orange and red glimmer and sparkle from their branches with rich, earthy smells, so close yet far.
“Live your life, sweetheart.”
He doesn’t know.
I am unsure of his reply, and yet he makes a point that is hard to ignore—living in question would only bring more. The wind picks up her cherry blossoms from the ground and sweeps them into the air when I finally take my first step outside—preparing myself to be greeted by new faces.
(Whoosh!)
Such a fresh feeling this is! The cold and the warmth melded into a cool liquor in the bowels of the stomach for yearning!
How odd it is for me to be here, yet being on a campus where others felt similar to what I felt soothed me in ways I didn’t think possible. Yet now, oddly, it is sad—sad but pleasant how swiftly this came. In the present, I am comfortably lounging in my new home’s football stadium with the richness of the world and the dirt pleasant on my hands and feet with my fellow instrument-people, prepared for another day of running through music.
Out of the corner of my eye are trees with buds full of orange-red leaves, but others are barren beneath with only sticks that stab at a clear, blue sky with the roar of traffic thundering along to their business peaking through. I gaze upon the magnificent oaks, and pity washes over my face. A thought sneaks into my mind, unburdening:
“Where will I, in my midst, enjoy the fruits of Thanksgiving?”
But it does not come to pass as I stare at the lonely upright twigs.
I tell myself:
“Yes, this is it. I’m reliving. I’m falling.”
And that is all that can ever be described when I think of Autumn and her feminine sunset of fluorescence of cool air, whether night or day, rain or shine. For she is reliving and falling, too.
—Winter—
Somehow, I am comforted by the familiarity of a year that has come and gone when the first snowflake flutters to land on my nose with a clash of thunder. The curl of a smile grazes my lips as my fingers bristle with a chill, and I swiftly stuff them into the pockets of my long, white coat my mom and dad had sent me in the mail. Their smells and the idea of being so close yet far makes me feel better. In time, I earned and made companions at my new home; I was introduced to being an adult and what it means to command the world. The world was my oyster, and I was the lookalike pearl among them. My writing, in turn, brought me solace when real life became a weight, and it brought forth new questions—four of them:
Who?
Who am I?
Who am I?
Who am I?
Who am I?
Who?
Words scream and chatter in my head, all coercing doubt and trying to get me to turn around like they once had. Yet, I do not walk away — I continue forward, as that is what I am meant to do. Stubbornness has somehow come along and given a helping hand, along with determination and bravery. Strength had built to fight the brutal chill ahead. Some chemical fondness and yearning employed me for something new.
I was no longer wary.
Familiarity had become a scent one could eat and sell, whereas I was employed of the variety of life, gifted with a challenge of beginnings that clutched me by the throat. I was reminded, in a passionate way, of friends of a once distant past — concern for ordinary people and for those who needed a shoulder to lean on. Trying so brutally hard to be those around me never compared to how uniquely different I had been being myself and chasing after a belief that made me come to terms with how beautifully wonderful it could be.
Now I was in my last days in the middle of a brutal snow, one week before the official finale, and I was startled by the fact that this was it. I had completed something I thought would have been a nightmare.
And yet…
“My journey is beginning.”
(“My journey is ending.”)
I know.
I walk out after having snapped my last book shut, freedom flourishing once again. My teeth chatter against the biting snow that falls heavily upon my shoulders, a long robe of white dragging behind my feet.
I realized just how nice it finally was becoming comfortable in my own skin, and perhaps that had been the one thing I had been missing.
The chill that roars through one's body, and the relief of drinking a hot honey-milk tea, fill the soul with a yearning for exploration and endurance. Snowflakes become commonplace, Jack Frost nipping delicately at me and for a sneeze to punch itself from my chest.
I do not wish for winter to stay when my mood is cloudy, yet he does—biding his time like a fox on the prowl, searching to dig for the next thing to bite. I wonder, absent yet full of mind, if I shall stay in this bleakness that will move onto beautifulness. Will he stay forever? Or will he slip away as the rest of the seasons do as with my observant eye? I feel as if this time, I will never awake nor ask again, and that yearning will disappear, and the crunch of snow fills the silence. A thought sneaks into my mind, unburdening:
“I am who I am, I have discovered, and no one else can change that about me.”
It has come to pass; I am satisfied.
I tell myself:
“Yes, this is it. I’m sleeping. I’m stirring.”
And that is all that can ever be described when I think of Winter and his masculine, brutal, cold shoulder, whether night or day, rain or shine. For he is sleeping and stirring, too.
—Spring—
Until I might repeat it all over again and—
