Mark A. Forrester
On the Cusp
She tells me often that she is an autumn person. Sometimes she says a spring person, occasionally summer. Once—I seem to recall—she claims to be a winter person.
Typically she makes her declaration mid-season: “What a beautiful warm day! I have always been a summer person, you know.” Sometimes, though, her pronouncement arrives as an off-season lament: “This heat is unbearable! I am such an autumn person, where is my cider and pumpkin everything?”
Usually I respond that I am an autumn person, too.
Years later, on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, I am staring out of my office window. The last patches of snow are melting rapidly into grey slushy streams. The smell of mud, tracked by noisy students into corridors and classrooms, fills the air.
“I’m a change-of-seasons person,” I think, surprising myself. I try the words out again in my mind: “I am a change of seasons person.”
morning sun the cat's neck lengthens
About the Author
Mark Forrester has taught English at the University of Maryland for more than 25 years. He is a high school dropout, a former chef, and a husband, father, and grandfather.