Videos hosted by Michael Erlewine

That would be me during the warm months. If it is busy, it must be summer. It happens every year; I get lost in activity and before I know it the weather has turned cold and we are headed for winter. Each year I promise myself that I will savor each longer day as the Sun climbs northward. And I dread hitting the solstice, the top of the year because I know that it is all downhill from there. That's the price we pay for a temperate climate.

No place I have ever been is more beautiful than Michigan in the summer, yet I always run out of patience with winter and wish I had moved south. But how would that work?

There I would be in some small southern town in winter, much warmer, a place where I could go for long walks outside even in winter. But also, there I would be hundreds of miles from my kids and everything I know, so what's the point?

What role does context play in my life? If you pluck me out of Michigan and place me in Florida, what is lost? There I would be, a stranger in strange land, to coin a phrase, perhaps warmer than toast, but bereft of familiar associations. And I hate air-conditioning.

I am sure that some of you reading this have done this, pulled out or harsh winters and replanted yourself in a sunny clime? How does that feel? Do you miss the context you grew up in and what do you miss? I am curious.

Did you permanently relocate or do you just hit the south for a couple of months during the end of winter. Tell me your experience please.

[Honey bee just outside of my house.]