Day 57: Is December the most honest month?

I miss the four seasons I grew up with. I especially love a crisp autumn day, a serene winter morning, a long summer evening. But if we’re doing a strict month-on-month analysis, I’m really not sure what could beat December in Costa Rica.

Did you see the series finale of “Downton Abbey,” where Lady Edith gets married and everyone else falls in love, brings forth new life, dances in slow motion or gazes lovingly at someone or something? That’s what it’s like. Sunny afternoons. Cool breezes that tousle your hair. Christmas. Festivals everywhere you look. School vacation. The aguinaldo, or Christmas bonus worth a full month’s salary. The whole country sort of swoons at once. Adults act like kids, fidgeting in their swivel chairs, gazing out the window at the delectably tempting sunny afternoons, trying to think of a reason to have some more rompope.

Still, as someone who grew up in New England, it took me a while to get used to a warm Christmas. In today’s piece over at my @poemsondemand account on Instagram, I decided to tackle a prompt I made up myself: explaining why December has such a unique and consistent feel even if you spend it in a climate and a culture so different from the one you grew up in. The answer I came up with? No matter where you are, December is the point of the year when you realize you’ve run out of time – and arbitrary as that milestone may be, it makes us throw our hands up and let go of expectations. As a result, I ended up wondering whether December, for all its festivities and excitement, might actually be the most honest of months. What do you think? (Do you have a poem topic to assign to me, seasonal or otherwise? The trickier or more random, the better. Help support my new addiction.)

No matter where December finds you this year, I wish you a month full of light.

I’m a writer in San José, Costa Rica, on a year-long quest to share daily posts on inspiring people, places and ideas from my adopted home as a kind of tonic during a rough time in the world. Sign up (top right of this page) to receive a little dose of inspiration every weekday in your mailbox; tell a friend; check out past posts; and please connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! You can also find me churning out small, square poems on any topic under the sun (here on the site, on Instagram or Twitter).