Ling Guang Collection-38-《Season》

Fragments of memory are like shimmering lights on a summer river... flickering, each shining on its own, yet echoing one another. I can't really write good articles; I merely string memories together into words, like picking up scattered beads to form a seasonal necklace.

When spring first sprouts, I already start thinking of summer. I yearn for that temperature that lets you sprawl out completely, for the right to let the sun soften your bones; by autumn, as leaves rustle underfoot, I think of summer again, of its unreserved bloom, unlike autumn's simultaneous giving and withering; winter goes without saying—bundled up in thick clothes, summer becomes a distant redemption.

But when summer truly arrives? I end up counting the days: "How much longer will the cicadas sing? When will the lotus flowers wither? When will the scorching sun turn gentle?" It turns out the only thing I think about in summer is the fear that summer will pass too soon.

Friends say I'm contradictory. I love autumn and summer for the wind's pleasant temperature; I also love winter because mosquitoes are a lifelong enemy. But upon reflection, what I love may never be the seasons in their entirety, but those subtle gaps between seasons. Like the accidental cracks in pottery glaze, where light seeps through.

In summers past, I often hid under the dense shade of phoenix trees. Watching sunlight slice the river into countless shards of gold, watching melon carts stop at the bridgehead, their red flesh and black seeds dripping with honey. Biking along the riverbank, the wind billowing my shirt, tireless as in youth. Summer permits such luxuries...

No need to think of tomorrow, because today is long enough—so long you'd think this moment is eternity.

Life's most intense encounters and farewells happen in summer. Graduation, journeys, first loves, goodbyes... all emotions ferment and swell in the heat, until—pop!—they burst like a soda can opening. Stories are always bright and fierce, even sorrow carrying the scent of sunlight.

Nature displays terrifying vitality at this time. Rainstorms arrive unannounced, washing heaven and earth slate-gray; heat steams leaves until they gleam, dripping moisture; cicada songs are the unending background score. Death? Death is invisible in summer.

Everything is too clamorous, clamorous enough to make you think life will never decay.

Yet why do I always reminisce? In summer, I miss last summer; in winter, last winter. Like now, just woken from a dream where someone left forever, only to realize it was just my sleeping posture pressing on my heart. But that sadness felt so real, real enough to disorient: "Perhaps pain's meaning lies not in its magnitude, but in its insistence on happening now." The stifling heat now, the longing now, the panic of realizing summer is slipping through my fingers now.

In winter, I want to surf; in summer, I want snow. Not dissatisfaction, but each season is like an incomplete circle. Spring is too reserved, autumn too mournful, winter too austere—and summer? Summer is too generous, generous enough to make you fear losing it.

Humans are such strange creatures: "When we have something, it feels ordinary; only after losing it do we see its full radiance." In deep winter, we yearn for midsummer's blazing sun; in midsummer, we long for deep winter's snow. Not to negate the present, but to seek some kind of compensation.

Filling reality's gaps with imagination, warming present loneliness with memory.

Sometimes I think this nostalgia for other seasons might be a secret rebellion in the mundane. When we say we miss summer, what we miss is more than the season—it's the self who still dared to love sweat-soaked, the certainty of not fearing loss, the state when life still brimmed with possibilities.

Truth is, I've forgotten nothing, but some things are only for keeping; the cycle of seasons—we keep spring's first flower, summer's last cicada cry, autumn's reddest maple, winter's quietest snow. Then before the next season arrives, secretly open the treasure box for a whiff...

Ah, so that's how I once lived.

Keep thinking of summer. In every moment of missing it, create a warmth for this season that won't be forgotten. When autumn winds rise, you'll find you've stored a whole summer's starlight, enough to illuminate all the days ahead needing warmth.

After all, we're never truly missing some past summer. We're fishing out, from all past summers, the reflection of this summer we're living now.