September is the New February

It´s September, but it feels like February. I don´t mean that just in terms of the winter weather here south of the Equator—the overcast skies, the lingering cold that settles into the tip of my nose—but in terms of the way the weather makes me feel. I can identify these feelings in the faces of passersby, all bundled up in their winter jackets and wearing fashionable boots: they´re tired of eating soups and drinking teas to keep warm, tired of putting an extra blanket on the bed at night, tired of spending their days in the office and their nights inside. I´m tired, too.

But wait—that´s not the way I usually feel in September, That´s the way I usually feel in February.

View from the office window: February in September.

At home, September means fall. Fall has always been my favorite season. Just one year ago, I wrote about the crispness and colors of autumn in Western Pennsylvania for a memoir class at Chatham.  I wrote about the smell of bonfire smoke after a football game, the tart taste of apple cider on a chilly night, the way the first frost covers the lawn like a delicate spider web. It´s the time of year when friends and family are talking about the first homework assignments and the first tailgates of football season.  Even though I know these things are really happening, in my mind Pittsburgh is just how I left it: tourists ambling down Grandview Avenue with half-melted ice cream cones, workers peering out their office windows, restless with the summer heat.

The stagnation of time is a curious component to living abroad.  I know time is passing where I am, but I can´t imagine it passing back home. For those I´ve left behind, the only time they can imagine passing for me is the time it will take me to come home. They´ve never seen me in this context, crossing the crowded streets of Miraflores or ordering coffee in Spanish. I won´t be the same way they left me at the airport.

It´s September, but it´s February. It´s winter, and I´m a long way from home.