‘If seasons were children, I know which would be my favourite’: Kate Langbroek’s love letter to summer
As summer heralds its return, radio and TV personality Kate Langbroek has some thoughts about the seasonal equivalent of ‘bare shoulders and sticky kisses’.
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You’re not supposed to have a favourite child. Of course I know this. There’s an unwritten societal expectation that you (at least publicly) love each one equally.
This requirement holds even if you have somehow spawned a creature that could play the lead in the live musical version of The Exorcist without a costume or special effects.
But if you were Mother Earth herself, could you remain impartial? Could you love a drooling lizard that lets meat decompose in its eyeballs the same way you would a newborn kitten? Surely this is beyond even the most loving of matriarchs?
I live in Melbourne, where the weather is mainly drooling lizard. I guess that has coloured my view, and if the seasons were children, I know which would be my favourite.
But in the interests of democracy, let me introduce them to you as offspring, and you can make up your mind.
Autumn, it seems to me, is a perpetual teenager: a shock of unruly hair gone suddenly haywire with puberty; a once-smooth forehead now rubbly with blocked pores and excess sebum. So much changing. Every day an erratic lurch into the unknown.
One day moody and raging, the next day gleaming. Messy. Confused. A random hug followed by a slamming door. Of course, it’s in the grip of this frustrating flux that autumn most needs parental reassurance.
“No, autumn, you’re gorgeous! So unpredictable with your perpetual wind, air of impending doom and glorious cacophony of colours.
The endless raking to keep you well-groomed. And think about it – if nobody loved you, the Americans wouldn’t have given you that charming nickname, would they?”
Winter, by contrast, is a first-year university drama student. Slightly haughty, with impeccable posture and an exquisite, inscrutable face. She rarely smiles. She’s frosty, aloof. If she sees the guy she likes she will suddenly produce a gleaming, sky-brightening smile … but only for an instant.
She’s also prone to jags of tears over seemingly trivial occurrences that see her take to her bed, weeping inconsolably under mounds of quilts, like a heroine from a 17th-century novel.
“Winter, you’re incredible. You have the ability to make short days feel so long.
And who doesn’t love layering? Clothes are so much more interesting with you. Scarves! Socks! Boots! You’re so farshun!
And you bring such curveballs: the bogged car, the mud puddles, gloom. Just never forget you’re capable of so much magic. I mean, um, snow …”
Spring, of course, is a fresh-faced toddler: all peachy cheeks and sticky fingers and so much energy. Sometimes spring wakes up from a nap and looks 2cm taller.
They also suffer from rashy-cheeked teething and constant allergies. But they’re simply adorable.
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“Spring, my darling. How sweet you are, and how busy we all are building nests and laying mulch and sneezing. You must be exhausted. Just rest, my beloved. I’ll pick up all the toys so everything is fine in the morning.”
And finally, of course, there’s glorious, effortless, sun-drenched summer: the sheer beauty of long-limbed adolescence, summer walks with a surfboard under one arm and a bag of minimum chips in the other.
Summer is all fresh eyes, high cheekbones, the sheen of bare shoulders and the promise of sticky kisses. Summer is barbecues and camping and river swims and ice blocks and books and banana lounges and cocktails made in the blender and Christmas and towels draped over any available balcony railing.
“Summer, I just love you so, so much. That’s it. Oh, wait, one more thing … don’t tell the others, but you might just be my favourite.”
Kate Langbroek is the co-host of The Buck Up podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Read her full column in the latest issue of Stellar, out on Sunday via The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), Sunday Mail (QLD) and The Sunday Mail (SA). For more from Stellar and the podcast Something To Talk About, click here.
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Originally published as ‘If seasons were children, I know which would be my favourite’: Kate Langbroek’s love letter to summer
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