A new year, a new season

Most people who know me know that New Year's is not my favorite holiday.  I don't really see that it's anything to celebrate.  Usually I just stay home, safe from all the crazies, and am asleep before midnight.

However, over the last nine months or so, as I was seriously considering leaving St. Louis, I did come to appreciate a few things about the general location; in particular, we have a lovely turn of the season four times a year.  It's certainly not unique to St. Louis, but it's not true everywhere.

There's spring.  Those first days when you can finally leave your heavy coat at home.  The days when the air is still cool but the sun is warm.  For some reason they always remind me of Easter, although if I think back on actual Easter Sundays, a lot of them were overcast and rainy.  But even the rain is good.  It's still cool enough that you don't mind being inside for the day - spring cleaning was never so focused as on a rainy day - but warm enough that you can go play in the rain if that suits you better. 

And then there's summer.  The sun is hot and the air swells with the promise of all the adventures to be had.  (And also with humidity.)  Everybody goes outside - to eat, to listen to music, to see movies and theater productions, just get some fresh air.  There are a million things you could do and enough daylight that you feel you might actually have a chance to get them all done.  Just make sure to leave enough time to sit by the pool and have a Pimm's.

Fall.  Autumn.  Whichever you prefer.  Even call it Indian Summer.  The heat finally breaks, and the cool mornings remind you to appreciate the warm afternoons.  The leaves start to turn, and in a good year, you could spend the whole day just looking at the rainbow of colors.  Ovens are turned back on, and food gets heavier and heartier.  You build your first fire of the season, and your fleece carries the scent of burning firewood for days.

And then winter.  The trees are bare, and sound carries for miles through the cold, crisp air.  But then it snows.  You get that deep, clingy snow, and the whole world is quiet.  You can curl up in the window with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate, buried under a pile of blankets and stay there for days.  You can get caught up on all the things you were having too much fun to do during the warmer months.  The holiday season comes, bringing lots of good food and good times, and then it goes again, not to return for another year.

But rest assured, it will come around again.