Each year, I have this relationship with a man. No, not that kind of relationship, not that there is anything wrong with that (copyright Seinfeld). This relationship starts in the autumn. There comes that night, maybe on a drive or just out with the dogs for one last time where I spot him. Orion...the constellation. I see him and I know any seemingly tolerable weather is about to be lost to him and his time in the sky. Still, he is low in the sky and I am still not too angry with him.
Then the brutal force of winter sets in. Orion sits high in the sky. Taunting me. Not caring if I hate his guts for the onslaught of frigid temps and feet of snow he has brought our way. There is nothing I can do but wish I had my own bow and arrow that would reach him and blow him from the sky.
Tonight I am in Key Largo, FL. I stood on my balcony and looked out over the water. I saw my friend. He is starting to dip lower in the sky. I thought it could be my imagination since the weather here is a bit nicer than at home but I knew that even in the frozen tundra, he is losing his grip and position in the sky. Slowly, the Earth pushes him back down to the horizon, for the other half of the planet to begin seeing. Maybe he is hated somewhere in that hemisphere as well.
For now, I will watch him slipping downward while my thermometer inches upward. By June, I will have forgotten about him. Then fall will come, all too soon and he will peek at me again. Pissing me off because I know that summer and fall are about to be whitewashed away.
