Wire Haiku

To wrap up the year and these retrospective posts, I thought I’d take a quick tour of the four (well, three-ish) seasons I wrote about this year and why they were special to me. I say “three-ish” because I actually started Wire Haiku in July this year, so I only got to write about winter, spring and summer. Still, I have fond memories of autumn and I can’t wait to see it again next year.

Winter

The best moment of the Australian year is somewhere in the middle of June, when you getting into bed, drag your paper-thin summer sheets over yourself and realise that you’re actually cold. That moment when you cover yourself in quilts and blankets and wrap yourself up like a little winter burrito; it’s magical.

I love the cold — at least, the slight cold we get down here — and I love being able to actually wear some layers and feel the bitter wind hit my cheeks. This year in particular, I started really taking note of the birds in winter, the places they keep warm and the little hiding places they make for themselves.

Spring

Spring means flowers, and in my hometown the flowers burst from the trees and cover every inch of the sidewalk in bright neon petals. I found myself walking these colourful trails and taking note of how the colours change between trees, as the different species of flowers shed different colours and form subtle gradients between them.

Also, spring means the return of all the insects and tiny wildlife, so as is tradition I spent the first few weeks convincing the spiders in my building to put their webs in more sensible places, and not — for example — in my kitchen window right above the drying rack.

Summer

The second best moment of the year is sometime in November when winter finally dies with a whimper and you wake up at three o’clock in the morning, throw off your heavy blanket and see your entire city shadowed by a raincloud moments away from bursting.

Summer rain always makes me happy, but even more so are the sights and sounds and other senses that it excites. The smell of rain before it falls, the feeling of warm mist on your skin, running up the hill to get home before the lighting and thunder start to strike.

I loved the seasons this year, and I can’t wait to see them come around again next year. Thank you so much for reading Wire Haiku, and I’ll see you on January 7 2023 when we start all this over again. Goodbye!