May

I’m seeing all the graduation pictures pop up across my facebook, the friends back home that went to law school or pharm school or PT school finishing their degrees and posting cap and gowns that fit differently and yet somehow the same as they did some years ago. It’s nice to see. Time and again, I’m so proud of the people we’ve become, the places we’ve gone and the things we’ve done. 

But it doesn’t feel like May to me. I know that’s what the calendar says, but I can’t believe it. Captain America: Civil War came out and then it was Star Wars Day (which has a surprising number of anniversaries associated with it among my Facebook friends) and then it was Cinco de Mayo and somehow we’ve barreled on a week past all that. It’ll soon enough be June which will roll blinking into July and after that I’ll stand on the edge of August preparing myself to belong somewhere new. 

That’s just timekeeping, though. I’m brutally aware of how time appears to run on faster the older you are, how we all exclaim “I can’t believe it’s [insert name of month here] already!” for almost every month on the calendar, November and February excluded. I know all those feelings. I know how this happens. I’m used to how horology changes with age and still, it doesn’t feel like May to me.

I think it’s the weather. Outside, the days have long since passed the length that indicates June in my mind, with the sun getting up earlier than I care to think about and staying up later than I can process. When I see the sun out, I assume that I’ll be greeted with a wall of humid heat when I walk outside. That’s what May feels like, like the whole world has been turned into a shower. It’s a month of untamable frizz and capricious curls, prepping you for the marathon of warmth that won’t let up ’til October. You leave your jackets at home or in the office, for the times when someone has the air conditioning turned up too high. Even the evenings only call for a cardigan and that’s if there’s a breeze to disturb water-laden air. 

But Scotland does not treat the seasons the same as North Carolina. At best, we’ve been in a perpetual chilly March, with the trees thinking about blooming and the temperature flirting with comfortable. It was downright pleasant in the sun the other day and I had a small moment of panic, wondering if this was all the heat I was going to get until I moved back to the States. I have been able to reduce my jacket layering down to just one, though, so I count up my small mercies and try to adjust. The weather doesn’t seem to be bothered by my protestations, no matter how many times I assure it that I am a delicate southern flower and I will wilt. 

It’d be not great sacrifice to stay here forever, though. I know I’d complain every year as May and June rolled around that the weather here just doesn’t know what summer is and I’d moan every year as November and December approach that the sun’s quitting too early, but these are tiny problems on the grand scale of the difficulties of life. They might control my mood more than I care to admit, but it’s fine. It’s tolerable. It’s a livable sacrifice. 

I guess it just floors me every time I’m reminded of how much where I’m from feeds into how I see the world. May feels a certain way to me because all I’ve ever known is a North Carolina May. That’s how it’s supposed to be. When May does not meet my expectations, I’m thrown off balance more than I thought I’d be. Every time I think I’ve gotten Scotland figured out, I’m reminded that it is a fundamentally different place from what I’m used to. How exciting. And frightening. And life-giving.