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[glass_icarus]

Another December posting meme topic: via_ostiense asked me for my favorite thing about each season of the year.

Summer is arguably my favorite season: in NYC, it's dance-outdoors season! I love the heat- well, dry heat is better than wet heat- and the sun and basking in the long afternoons before sunset. Stone fruits and berries are in season, which are my favorites when I can't get my hands on any mango or guava. It's the season when I can actually enjoy being outside in rainstorms! and indulge my sea cravings! Beach weather, I love it.

I love fall for its crisp weather, though it takes me a long time to appreciate it since I'm always reluctant for summer to end. I love watching the leaves shift from green to yellow to red to brown, especially the yellow-to-red spectrum at its most beautiful (in sunlight, against a clear blue sky). Thanks to school, it's the season I associate with new beginnings- a clean slate for the coming year. It's also apple season, and the start of US year-end holiday season, which I like because making and eating food with family and friends is a great joy in life.

The best thing about winter is snow, though obviously urban and non-urban experiences are quite different. I don't actually mean being out in the snow, though that's fun too; the part I love best is watching the snow fall, especially late at night when the sky turns reddish. The long nights can be depressing, but the stars look incredibly clear in winter, and there's something about the haloed moon when it looks like snow is coming. I also like being able to do something about the cold; it's nice to adjust for temperatures by adding or removing layers (as opposed to summer heat, when you hit the inevitable point when there's nothing left to remove :P).

Spring is birthday season, flower season, new-green-leaf season. I feel like I never have much to say about spring since I've always been busy during it, but I like watching as the days grow longer and things start to grow again. Shedding the winter-weight clothes is also a relief! Really, I think the thing I like best about the seasons is living in a place where all four of them are distinct.

Comments

[via_ostiense]

Reading your thoughts about the seasons has made me happy that it's winter, and excited for the rest of the seasons to come. Spring on campus is glorious, because all the trees have positively extravagant, lush blooms weighing down their branches, as if they're so excited it's spring that they said, "Good taste be damned, I'm bringing out ALL the flowers!"

[glass_icarus]

Mm, yes, spring flowers on campus are quite glorious! (The grass on main campus, otoh, is quite a different story... unrolling new sod every year doesn't count as lawn maintenance in my book. :P)

The winter lights are up on College Walk now, no? I love seeing those, though I forget to take pictures every year.

[via_ostiense]

They went on yesterday!

[glass_icarus]

Yay! Maybe this year I'll finally manage a photo op, hahaha.

[magnetic_pole]

I'm impressed by your ability to be positive about all four! :) M.

[glass_icarus]

Hee, well, obviously I'm not always positive about all four, but this prompt definitely helped me put my seasonal crankiness in perspective. xD

[littlebutfierce]

This is a lovely post! I agree, I like having distinct seasons as well -- when I was an undergrad in Texas, it was SO WEIRD going to the campus tree-lighting in shorts & a t-shirt. -__-

[glass_icarus]

♥! Hee, yeah, as a northeasterner I... can't imagine not being COLD at a tree-lighting.