Leaves on trees.

Walking down the long sidewalk from the train platform and skybridge to my office building, I watched as a gust of wind shook a multitude of leaves from the trees. They cascaded down across my path, left to right. I looked up and saw that the trees were still trying to denude themselves in preparation for the harshness of winter.

Climate in Houston is always a funny thing. Winter is never really winter, and spring flirts with cold briefly before giving way to summer. Summer in Houston is unmistakable. And lasts for about 9 months. Okay, maybe not, but it feels that way.

But I have to wonder what the weather is like from the tree's perspective. After the sweltering late summer and the rainy inconsistency of what must have seemed like an overlong fall, the transient chill in the air must be convincing the sad, old trees that winter is coming. More cold, grey days to endure.

There is a cool snap coming this week, to be sure. But in a month, it'll warm up again. It's already mid-February. Once we get past our Valentine's frost (almost a tradition around these parts), the sun will return and things will get warmer.

Poor, sad tree, convinced that nothing but cold, lonely winter is in its future. It doesn't realize that a new burst of life and growth and blossoming spring is just around the corner.

But trees don't use calendars, and have little sense of the future. Their perspective is limited to only what they're feeling at the moment. They're funny that way.