mother nature is a bitch

Mother Nature enjoys this sick game, I think.

She allows her tantalizing rays to reach our cold, grey Canton, and I exclaim how beautiful they are! The sun! It hasn’t gone away forever! We’ve managed to appease Mother Nature, somehow, someway, and now—now there is light!

Oh, but Mother Nature scoffs at my childlike understanding. She is not so easy to appease.

One day, she will give us warmth and sun. But the next? She will give us the sun, but as I step outside, t-shirted and sandaled, she blasts me across the face with chilly, bitter winds. I mutter my hate as I pull my winter jacket back on, cursing the tossed aside capri pants. Into the car I go, deciding to drive to the gym rather than walk the short half-mile, as I had planned to do when I believed in the warmth. As I sit in the car, I become increasingly annoyed. The heat! I can feel the heat coming through the windshield, and now I am sweating! I roll down the window to let some of that cold air inside, feeling my face dry as the wind hits it.

Later, in the wellness center, as I move my legs on the elliptical, I watch the poor, misunderstanding students walking along the pathways, some heading to or from the library, some going to the cafeteria or to their dorms. Some are dressed well, with hats and coats, but some are wearing flip-flops—one boy is even daring to wear shorts! Perhaps he has decided to throw his angst back at Mother Nature, choosing only to believe in the sunshine. His legs will pay for his folly later, though, when he finds them dry and painful. Foolish boy.

In the afterglow of my workout, I decide to make the short trek to my car without my jacket on, and that actually feels quite nice; though by the time I make it back to my apartment, the walk from my car to my door is painful as the air hits my perspiring body, chilling the sweat and making me colder than I had been when I first left home. I mutter curse words under my breath as I climb my stairs, wishing for Mother Nature to make things just a bit more predictable. But that’s not the nature of Mother Nature. No, she likes to pull her little tricks, likes to keep us guessing, us poor little creatures, subject to her whims and fancies.

A vicious dictator, she is.