Seasons

All my life, I'd heard about seasons, but being from Los Angeles, I hadn't actually experienced one.  I've visited snow, of course, but that's not the same as experiencing it, and frankly I didn't see the point.  Naturally I assumed having great weather year-round was ideal, and anyone who said "I miss the seasons" was delusional.

Three years ago, I got my first taste of fall foliage in Pennsylvania, and I suddenly understood what everyone was talking about.  It felt like I was experiencing the landscape fresh every single day, and I was hooked.  That was when I realized I could never return to Los Angeles.

Today I was reminded of that driving down the motorway with a heavy snow falling under a bright sky, flocking the bare trees.  I should have been terrified of the icy road, but instead I felt like a child, sticking my tongue out to catch the flakes.  (No, it doesn't work inside a car.)  The fields looked like water, flat and still under the snow.  It was stunning, but even more remarkable was knowing that in six months it will be a different world, familiar in shape and place, but fields ablaze with rapeseed, lush trees full of birds, the silence a deafening chorus of animals, the melted snow just an overflowing stream.  I now understand what everyone meant, and how addictive it can be.

Now, I'm not about to move to Norway so I can experience this regularly.  In fact, part of the charm of England is that while it gets all of the seasons, it doesn't do any of them particularly well.  But for me, it's absolutely perfect, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

The view from my flat the next day