Is it Winter yet?

Magnet #865 - Tiffany's Autumn

Winter,* the final of my Four Seasons VMFA Tiffany magnetset, from the Tiffany exhibition.

It's gonna hit about a hundred today, and I know in a few hours, I'll be in the subway, giggling over the seasonal differences down under.

Right now, when you walk down the stairs into the subway, you're immediately assaulted by the waves of heat wafting through the station, with our only air current the trains ripping through the tunnels.

You enter the cars, and with any luck (especially now with all these budget cuts), it's air-conditioned, and it's filled with half-dressed people, just trying to beat the heat. Tank tops and flip flops, long hair pulled into a clip, and makeshift newspaper fans desperately trying to make a breeze. There's less people, but the folks left seem to just be trying not to touch each other's sweaty limbs.

In the winter, we all crowd into the subways with our heavy, heavy coats and our boots and gloves and hats, and we're all just happy to be warm and in from the cold and wind. Less people fit in the cars, by virtue of all those heavy coats bunched up against each other. Yet, gloved hand after gloved hand dot the rails along the top of the cars, and it's all we can do to sway as a group whenever the cars take an abrupt turn or brake suddenly.

I dunno, it just always strikes me funny when I'm staring down at either flip-flops or boots to remember how different we are come winter or summer, and what a difference a season makes.

* Morse Museum of American Art's Four Seasons PDF guide