The Passage of Time

Summer quarter has begun, and I am more aware than ever now of just how much I am overstaying my original plans. Although a few have remained, many of my friends have left Taiwan, and my staying here through the summer seems somehow wrong and out of whack.

As I walked to school on Monday morning, I saw the pavement filled with yellow blooms. I thought back to the first signs of spring a few months ago, when the trees along the road across from where I live erupted in vibrant pink colours. Some time after that, I noticed that little birds with black caps had appeared in Da’An Park, and pedestrians had begun to avoid pieces of orange fruit that lay splattered everywhere and whose trees often seemed to harbour Taiwan barbets. Hordes of people with professional-looking cameras set up outposts near such trees at Da’An Park, flocking together like a gaggle of paparazzi to take a few snapshots of these beautiful birds. 

It has almost been a year since I first came to Taiwan, and I did not expect to stay long enough to see it shift through all the seasons. True, they are less pronounced than back home, but even in this subtropical land, the year has a rhythm, from the falling yellow leaves in November to the wild conflagration of colour in March when the azalea bushes begin to bloom.