On the Evening Air

There are a many different things that make summer really 'Summer.' And Autumn 'Autumn' and Spring 'Spring.' But biking home today, I decided there is one way in which I really prefer all of them to winter.

Now I'm a multi-season girl. Any time of year, you'll find me content with the seasonal state of my surroundings. Spring is so fresh and sunny and exciting; when I was in public school, I loved that first warm day when everyone could go outside in snow pants and sweatshirts (no need for your coat) and run around on sun dried pavement and make wet snowballs out of slowly melting snow. Summer is great because of how beautiful everything is pretty much all of the time. The nights are warm and the swimming's good and I want to be outdoors every second I can. Autumn leaves me feeling even more invigorated than Spring. Maybe it's that the back-to-school feeling never goes away, but the bright colours and the clear skies and the crips air seem so fresh and alive. And Winter makes me happy too. As I feel it approaching, I look forward to nights spent cozy indoors while the snow flies outside the window. I love skiing and building forts and getting all dressed up in scarves and hats and getting rosy cheeks from the cold. And maybe it's just me, but I feel like the stars are brighter and the sky is bigger during the winter.

The one thing I've really come to appreciate about the other three seasons, however, I never really noticed until these past few months. Early morning and twilight were common times for me to be travelling to or from work, and it seems those times are when the smells in the air are the most noticeable. I'd just never really noticed before what a variance of sensations the evening air can carry to me as I speed along on my bike. Tonight was especially nice. Rotting leaves, a smell like dry hay, dusty gravel, wood fires, moist earth, all sorts of plant smells, spicy and pungent and fresh. They all blend together in a very harmonious way, changing so subtley that with each inhalation I'm aware of the scent having changed, but I can't quite remember what was different about it before.

Each season brings its own potpourri; Spring has that earthy smell of mud and thawing earth, Summer has daisies and freshly sweet grass and lake water, Autumn has dry hay and that leafy smell of decay. I shouldn't say that Winter has nothing. There is that distinctive smell of cold, fresh, clearness that comes with a crips Winter's night. There's also the smell of icy pine and moist firewood. But it seems to me that winter doesn't provide quite the 'glad to be alive' variety of sensations that the rest of the seasons do.

Could be I'm wrong. Like I said, I never noticed these things until just the last few months. Perhaps I haven't given winter a proper chance, and over the next few months, as I walk to work in the snow, I'll discover a whole variety of treats for the nose I'd never been aware of before. But in the meantime, I just want to send a shout out to Mother Nature in appreciation all the varieties of evening air I've enjoyed this year. Enjoy them while they last.