A new spin on climate change

I look back on my career days from the perspective of my new life like looking at a film negative (what, by the way, will replace the film negative in our lexicon once a whole generation reaches adulthood without having seen a film camera?). Staying at home may not be for everyone (I used to be certain it would not be for me), but it does seem like a more natural, organic way of life than spending every weekday in a climate controlled, fluorescently lit pod of industry.

Summers here are just ghastly - way too hot and humid on the best days, unbearably stultifying and stifling on the worst. When I worked in an office every day, summer only entered my thoughts for a few minutes each morning and evening while I waited for my car's air conditioning to kick in on my commute. Now that I'm home, and trying cost-consciously to save electricity, I spend my summers sweltering and dreaming of cooler weather. To my fevered, summer-sick eyes, the start of school on Tuesday looks like a line of demarcation between the hell of summer and the promise of fall.

I realized this the other day as I shopped for school supplies for my eldest and started to feel that back-to-school excitement that I haven't had since I was in school myself. Living with and, to a degree, for my children has given me back seasons - something I didn't realize I had lost.