The Blessing of Seasonal Amnesia

December cold hits like betrayal, though I’ve lived through thirty-nine identical Decembers. “When did it get so cold?” I ask, as if winter arrived unscheduled instead of following the same planetary mechanics that have governed seasons since before human memory.

We forget seasonal intensity between experiences. Memory retains facts but not sensations. I remember that winter was cold, but my body doesn’t remember how cold feels until cold returns to teach the lesson again.

The Gap Between Knowing and Feeling

“Ei to geche giye elo,” Happy says about summer’s return. Just left and came back. But between departure and return lies months of forgetting what heat actually does to energy, motivation, sleep patterns. We intellectually know seasons repeat but somatically experience each as fresh surprise.

I know December will be cold. I’ve known this since childhood. I can recite average temperatures, predict frost dates, prepare appropriate clothing. But knowing doesn’t prepare the body for the actual sensation of cold air hitting skin, the way it sharpens breath and tightens muscles, the specific discomfort of fingers losing dexterity.

The intellectual knowledge exists in a different category than physical memory. My mind stores the concept “winter is cold” alongside other facts—historical dates, mathematical formulas, vocabulary words. But my body stores nothing. Each winter, my nervous system reacts as if encountering cold for the first time, generating fresh shock at temperatures it has survived dozens of times before.

May’s heat arrives the same way—my calendar warns me, my past experience confirms the pattern, yet my body greets the first truly hot day with surprise and complaint. How did I forget that heat makes thinking difficult, that humidity drains motivation, that sleeping becomes strategic challenge? The information was available. The sensation was not.

The Purpose of Forgetting

The forgetting serves psychological function. If we retained full sensory memory of seasonal discomfort, anticipatory dread would contaminate enjoyable seasons. Winter’s approach would poison autumn. Summer’s intensity would ruin spring. Seasonal amnesia protects present experience from future knowledge.

Imagine if October carried not just awareness of approaching winter but full body memory of January cold—the actual sensation retained and available for recall. Autumn’s perfect temperatures would be shadowed by visceral dread, every pleasant day counting down to remembered misery. The beauty of falling leaves would compete with anticipatory shivering.

Or if March remembered June heat with full sensory accuracy—the specific oppression of 40-degree afternoons, the way air feels solid, the exhaustion that comes from simply existing in high temperatures. Spring’s gentle warmth would feel like trap, temporary reprieve before inevitable suffering.

Seasonal amnesia allows us to fully inhabit present conditions without contamination from past or future seasons. October gets to be purely October, not October-plus-remembered-January. March exists as March, not March-plus-anticipated-June. Each season receives undivided attention because body memory doesn’t persist across the gaps.

Perpetual Seasonal Surprise

But this creates perpetual cycle of seasonal surprise, as if we’re living seasons for the first time despite decades of identical patterns. The cold that shocks in December. The heat that overwhelms in May. The rain that disrupts in monsoon. Each arrives like unexpected guest rather than scheduled visitor.

“When did it get so hot?” I ask in June, as if the calendar didn’t clearly indicate summer’s arrival, as if the previous thirty-eight Junes hadn’t followed identical patterns. The question isn’t about information—I know the date, know the season, know the weather patterns. The question expresses body’s genuine surprise at re-encountering familiar sensation.

This makes us somewhat ridiculous—adults shocked by predictable patterns, repeatedly surprised by calendar-scheduled events, complaining about seasonal conditions that arrive with astronomical precision. We’re like people surprised by birthdays, astonished that age increases annually according to consistent formula.

Yet everyone does this. Collective seasonal amnesia means entire populations greet December cold with shock, express amazement at monsoon rains, act betrayed by summer heat. We know seasons repeat. We prepare for them. We mark them on calendars. But our bodies forget between cycles, ensuring fresh surprise at each return.

Adaptation Through Forgetting

Maybe surprise isn’t failure of memory but success of adaptation. Each season requires different version of ourselves. Forgetting between seasons allows fresh response rather than tired repetition, authentic engagement rather than rehearsed endurance.

Winter-me is different from summer-me—different clothing, different routines, different energy levels, different psychology. If winter-me persisted into spring, I’d be maladapted, still wearing wool when cotton is needed, still expecting early darkness when days have lengthened.

The forgetting allows transformation. When winter arrives, I become winter-person without baggage from summer-person. My body relearns cold tolerance from zero, rebuilding strategies specific to current conditions rather than relying on outdated summer-season approaches. The surprise generates fresh problem-solving rather than rote repetition.

If I retained full sensory memory across seasons, I might approach each with exhaustion—”here we go again, same discomfort, same struggles, same endurance required.” The amnesia gives permission to engage freshly, to discover cold as if new, to develop contemporary responses rather than replay archived reactions.

The Cycle Continues

Tonight December cold teaches my body winter lessons I’ll forget by spring and relearn next December, in endless cycle of seasonal surprise that keeps experience fresh despite repetition.

My body is currently learning: how many layers are needed, which combinations work, how long exposed skin tolerates cold. It’s adjusting circulation patterns, updating comfort thresholds, recalibrating what counts as tolerable versus unbearable. By February, I’ll have this figured out. By June, I’ll have forgotten it completely.

Next December, the cycle repeats. “When did it get so cold?” I’ll ask, temporarily forgetting that I ask this question every December, that the answer is always “exactly when winter arrives,” that my surprise is scheduled as reliably as the season itself.

This might seem like failure—thirty-nine winters and still surprised by winter’s characteristics. But maybe it’s sophistication. The forgetting keeps me present, prevents burnout from repetition, allows each season to feel like experience rather than re-performance.

The cold tonight is teaching me winter. Not reminding me—teaching me, as if for the first time. And when spring arrives with its own surprising warmth, I’ll forget these lessons completely, making space for seasonal transformation that requires amnesia to function.

“Ei to geche giye elo.” Just left and came back. Between departure and return, the forgetting happens, preparing me to meet the returning season with fresh surprise, as if encountering it for the first time despite decades of identical repetition. Maybe that’s not failure of memory. Maybe that’s how seasons are meant to be lived.