Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

  It is no secret that I loathe the summer time. With every sunrise I pray for its death, unable to find a redeeming quality in the scorching heat and blinding sun. People flock to the beaches to soak it in, and all I wonder to myself is “Why?” It’s something I really can’t make myself see the other side of.  And yet, when I go for a walk on the morning of the calendar date of November 19th, I find myself coming upon the gate of a local beach. I have lived near this lake community for over four years now. I know that this beach is here, I spend countless summer afternoons wondering why people want to cram like sardines into it, and yet, somehow, on this morning, just shy of three weeks since my beloved Halloween, it occurs to me that I’ve never truly looked at it. Before I seem to know what my feet are doing, just moments ago trying to lead me to the house where a pair of flying ghosts had roamed back in October, they are now carrying me to the edge of the beach’s gate. I peer...

 I recently remembered an assignment I was given when I was a sophomore in high school. Spring was coming, and our biology teacher wanted us to make some sort of journal, observing trees and plants in our yards and how they changed as spring began. I don’t remember a whole lot about this assignment, but I remember focusing on a lilac bush that my father had planted years before, and having to dry and press a piece of it into the little binder I was using for the project, but the thing that stands out the most in my memory was that the final piece of the journal was supposed to be some sort of essay about what we learned about the seasons changing and how the coming of spring made us feel. (I still think this assignment would’ve been better suited to a language arts class, but what do I know?)  I was always better at writing than I was at things like math and science, but I found this particular assignment difficult. I have never been a fan of warm, sunny weather, and the comin...

 Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to have seasonal depression, during every season that isn’t fall. I know it’s there in summer. The constant sun and heat has the completely opposite effect on me than it has on most people. It makes me miserable; its only redeeming quality being the fact that it’s the last stepping stone til fall. It’s a different kind of feeling though, as the winter comes. I don’t necessarily have a problem with the cold weather. I prefer it, any day, over the heat. But still, there is something so saddening, as November tapers off into December, taking with it the last remnants of autumnal comfort. I hated November so much when I was younger. I would draw big X’s through the O’s on my calendars and planner pads. I treated it as if it were unspeakably horrible, and perhaps the first of the month still is. But once I confront the petulant bully that is November 1st, and put it in its place, just a box on the calendar, it’s as if the rest of the month relaxes an...