Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Shape of the Year

All my life, I have had a mental diagram of the year. I don't know where it came from, but it has never changed. Here is what it looks like:

 

My year goes counterclockwise. It is three-dimensional, not flat. I am looking at it and traveling around it. Winter is on the bottom, Spring on the right, Summer top, and fall on the left as you see the diagram. But my orientation (right or left turns) is based on where I am during the year. For example, in August, as I face fall, I am turning left and down. In May, as I face summer, I am turning left again, and up.
 

Diagonal line through December represents Christmas, at which I sense a turn in the year.
 

Vertical line through April roughly represents Easter.
 

Diagonal line in May represents a turning that I sense around Mom’s birthday, (May 6) Mother’s Day, and school being out.
 

June turns from the right side of the square to the top around my birthday (June 17) and the Summer Solstice.
 

The vertical line through July represents July 4.
 

Diagonal line in September is Labor Day weekend, when the year turns downward toward fall.
 

Horizontal line through November marks Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday season.
 

Shapes of the months seem to roughly correspond with the amount of daylight.
 

May and June are not perfect ovals. They are more amorphous. I couldn’t get the drawing tool in Microsoft Word to make the shapes I wanted for these months. But in a pencil sketch, they looked almost like amoebas.

 

I think that this concept comes from the school year. Psychologists would have a field day with it.
 

When I have to stop and think what month or time of year it is, I have to picture myself on this diagram in order to orient myself.
 

My months have colors, too. September: terra cotta; October, red-orange; November, grayish black; December, red; January, white; February, murky gray; March, green; April, rose; May, green; June, blue and yellow; July, yellow and red; August, dark red.
 
 
What is your shape of the year?

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