if people are seasons

My stepmom is autumn, her face warmed and browned after a summer spent outdoors, cupboards full of comforting harvest and rooms with deep brown wooden furniture. Her rooms are full of the scent of steaming cups of tea and wool and wood smoke, and they hum with candles as daylight dims. The light is low and the floors are warm.

 If people are seasons, then my dad is a north-woods-of-Wisconsin-winter, piles upon piles of peacefully sleeping snow and heavy curtains of pine. He is briskly gliding cross-country skis, stacks of hand-hewn firewood, and deep breaths making clouds of steam in the clear air.

 My mom was an east-Texas-spring, behind a different curtain of pines. Her spring spills over with dessert-named flowers like azaleas and magnolias and bluebonnets, lush and refreshed by warm rain showers. It's the gentle, easy warmth and fragrant air before the smothering glare of summer.