Kevättalvi!
Kevättalvi is Finnish
It means: Spring-Winter in English.
In Finland, we have a halfway season.
It isn’t official, but many know it and use the term.
Our son is in pilot school in Alaska. Once a week he Facetimes us and we watch Northern Exposure together. It’s a show Michael and I watched before we got married back in 1990 when TV was dependent upon stations and shows were dependent upon a loyal audience who watched them on specific days and specific times.
We loved this show!
Anyway, Benjamin and I typically watch on Sunday nights. Accounting for the time change and his work schedule, we watch faithfully pausing several times for commentary which often include,
“I LOVE Chris-in-the-Morning” and
“Ed is SOOOO great!”
There is this one episode in Season 2 Episode 5 called Spring Break. Chris’s morning commentary is accompanied by the music from Hakal called “Go Insane.”
Chris is talking about the time that occurs just prior to the Ice Cracking. He calls upon Persephone - Queen of the underworld: Goddess of spring, the dead, grain, and nature. (insert comment)
“I LOVE Chris-in-the-Morning,”
cries out Benjamin.
Michael has often told me stories surrounding Michigan Urban Lore of what he calls, “The Crack.” After a long cold winter, people begin to get antsy. Call it cabin fever, but there is a phenomenon where people begin to show a sympathetic release and relief to the tension building in the Great Lakes and then suddenly a “CRACK” and “ROAR” or “MOAN” (as Chris-in-the-Morning describes) occurs.
People suddenly become happier;
However…
Linnea Butler, LMFT, the founder of Bay Area Mental Health in Campbell, California, describes a condition called: Reverse SAD. (Seasonal Affective Disorder)
“Transitions, in general, are very difficult for human beings,” Butler noted. So while many of us may welcome the shift from snowy landscapes to greenery and budding flora, it can have a different impact on others.
Once again, Persephone comes to mind.
The myth of her abduction, her sojourn in the underworld, and her temporary return to the surface represents her functions as the embodiment of spring and the personification of vegetation, especially grain crops, which disappear into the earth when sown, sprout from the earth in spring, and are harvested when fully grown.
Meanwhile…
Punxsutawney Phil (honorary groundhog) did not see his shadow this past February 2, 2024, and has predicted that there will be an early spring. The day marks only the 21st time Phil has not seen his shadow during the 138-year-old tradition.
Meanwhile…
The San Francisco Bay area says: Winter is giving way to Spring, and we're in that liminal time between seasons, when the weather just can't make up its mind. So, we’ve decided to change up our Lager options …
I suppose the only way to work with change is to embrace it. Which lager would you choose?
I close with a Chris-in-the-Morning commentary:
“Greetings, Cicely (Alaska), on this most exceedingly beautiful Winter/Spring morning. A morning swollen with new life, a morning on which, if I had the voice, I would let loose with song. It's hard to believe just a few short weeks ago we were eating our cornflakes in the wintry dark. Now, well it's still kind of dim out there, but I can see the golden glow of Apollo's chariot waiting in the wings, about to make its entrance. Winter's on the lam, no doubt.”
