Once upon a time Winter lived as an old woman, and her daughter was Fall. They lived near each other and they argued all the time. When Winter was angry, fields froze early and crops were lost. The year’s young in the forest; the mice and bunnies and foxes and such, had a very hard time of it when Winter was angry. When Fall was angry the wind blew all the leaves off the trees and the shingles off the roofs, and it rained at harvest time.
Fall had ways to incite Winter, sometimes just by twisting words, or proving yet again that Fall was stronger, more alert, more assertive, smarter, more enlightened, and incredibly patient, seeing as how she was better in all ways than Winter. One day Winter came back to her own house and Fall was there waiting. Fall had taken up residence in Winter’s place, and the root crop wouldn’t set, the apples on the trees longed for winter to come and turn their juices to sugar, bears and lizards yearned for the cold hibernation time. This time when Winter came to her own house, Fall blew right in with a hot gust of challenging words, without even a greeting. She was very rude indeed to Winter, and it started to rain on the harvest.
Fall didn’t know it then, but Winter was already carrying heartbreak that day. Her friends, the Snow Goose family, had been through a hard Fall season because a wet harvest ruined most of their crops, so they were already counting every seed as it came time for travel to the winter home, when disaster struck in the form of an angry, freezing storm that quickly turned mud to ice, and brooded and snapped over the land. The Snow Goose family told Winter that they were planning to pack up their survivors and go somewhere more clement.
Winter knew Fall was partly responsible, and she was disappointed in her daughter, that she would act so unthinkingly, because the Snow Goose family lived in nature between Fall and Winter, but Winter had to admit that her own anger hadn’t made the weather any happier either. When Winter came home after talking to the Snow Goose family, saddened and cold, the first greeting she heard was from her daughter, informing her of all that was wrong with Winter. It was finally just too much. She lost the will to fight.
Feeling smug to have gotten in the first blow, Fall braced herself for Winter’s snappy comeback, but it didn’t come. Fall looked for Winter’s mood, and immediately saw the change in Winter’s eyes, the old mother’s eyes registered a frailty that Fall had never seen there before. The two women stood speechless for a moment. The daughter became alarmed and stepped in to embrace her old mother, thinking she might be feverish or have some other illness, because even with the Seasons, change is the only constant, and hard winters give way to gentle winters, or long winters, or wet winters, or busy winters. Gradually, without even knowing it, Fall always turns into Winter.
Then, at that very moment, Fall vowed never to argue with her mother again, but she knew she did not currently possess the key to conviviality, the key to getting along.
Now Fall apologized for her rude behavior and vowed out loud never to vex her old mother again. Winter was very surprised at first, and then when Fall persisted, Winter argued that Fall could never do such a thing for any length of time, she was incapable of it. But Fall talked gently to her and at last they both agreed that something had to be done. It was something to start agreeing on at least.
After that day, Fall and Winter went the same peaceful way, searching for the key to getting along for a long enough time to come to respect each other and to treat each other with kindness. They eventually came to realize that somewhere along the way they had acquired that key and were using it. Long busy Fall days respectfully and peacefully turned cooler, with rains after the harvest like it should be, and Winter respected Fall by creating icy ponds to reflect the leafless trees, and with clear, sunny days for skating, and enough white snow for sledding and hot chocolate.
For several years, Fall and Winter had to work really hard to not argue, but soon they discovered that they were on an adventure of learning to know each other. The daughter refrained from correcting her old mother (more often than not), and the old woman softened a little, too, and soon they were actually enjoying each others company.
The whole land breathed a sigh of relief.
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