I don't really know which season is my favorite. I like having distinct and definable seasons, of that much I'm sure, but which one puts in the most time filling up my soul is debatable. Each season has something to recommend it.
Summer is lovely and warm and, no matter how many years I have been out of school, always feels a bit like a holiday. Evenings last forever and I never feel too awful about getting out of bed earlier than usual because the sun is always there to greet me and promise me that it will be a good, long, and productive day.
Autumn is simply stunning. No other death scene can compare to that which Autumn plays for us time and time again. Each year I am witness to an Autumn I fall in love with the endlessly varying colors and am overwhelmed by the simultaneously dry and moist smell of the leaves after they've fallen and become party-colored crisps on the ground, waiting to be turned into the fertilizer that is their destiny. I well up when I witness the way the sunlight slants low through the trees and sets the world on fire. I welcome the nip in the air that takes me by surprise and sends me running back inside for a jacket. If Autumn were human he would be a Vermont woodsman and I surely would have married him years ago.
Spring is like a really good stretch. It starts out slowly, a slight twisting of the arms and back perhaps, but leads into a great, big, full body, all consuming affair that takes control and kick starts the life back into you. Like Autumn, it smells of leaves and wet, but under those smells is something a bit more, something that tickles the nose like the threat of a sneeze and in that last moment, just when you think you will be fine, explodes outward into a cacophony. Spring is a riot of nature, unstoppable and awesome in its power while concurrently mellow and sweet. It is a season contradictory unto itself.
Winter, a proper Winter, is cold. This deceptively avuncular season, when viewed from inside one's home, says "Come outside and enjoy me in all of my frosty glory. Witness my icy blue skies and my pale yellow sunlight." But when you succumb to the beauty without and decide to brave what must surely be a reasonable temperature, Winter turns on you like a Santa Claus with what appears to be a bag of goodies but is only a multitude of coal. And yet the nature lover still cannot help but wish to embrace this grumpy old man. The sharp smell of ice in the air, the snapping of crystalline greenery underfoot, the sibilance of the wind rubbing the bare branches together like the legs of a cricket, the orchestra of silence found within a gentle snowfall - these are the gifts that Winter wishes to bestow upon those who believe the tale they see through their window. While some may view Winter as the bait and switch of the seasons, others merely see it as the friend who drags you, protesting, to a party because she knows you will have a great time once you are there.
While I began this saying that I do not have a favorite season, one might still come to believe that I do, perhaps, and that favorite season is Winter. And it may be that today they would be right. You see, as I stood by my window earlier this week, looking out at the winter birds enjoying the plenty that is the feeding ground of my balcony and my landlords' garden, it occurred to me that Winter was on its way to finishing up this year. The temperatures have risen a bit from the teens we were experiencing just a few weeks ago, February is moments from making its appearance, and while the threat of snow may still be ever present it is seldom realized. On this evidence the advent of Spring was brought up yesterday in my German class and today I am certain that it was a topic of conversation on the German radio. Upon my acceptance today, whilst driving home, that it might be true, that this beautiful winter might be coming to an end, I was struck by a great feeling of sadness. As I travelled through the forest and then down the other side of the mountain that separates my village from those that more closely circle the military bases, I made sure to fully appreciate that the frost that was present when I left home earlier was still in place, wrapping my village and the fields that precede it in a cottony embrace. And as I pondered my melancholy, reminding myself that it was a tougher Winter than usual this year and there was plenty to make me glad of the approaching Spring, I realized that it was not truly the loss of this Winter that was saddening me but my probable loss of the German Winters to come.
This Winter has the potential to be my last Winter here in Germany; certainly it will be my last that I am able to enjoy without the specter of another move in my future. This may be the last year I get to wake up in a cloud or a world wrapped in cotton and the last year I get to look out the window and identify all of these birds I have come to know and love. And for this, right now, I love Winter all that much more. Spring must wait her chance - I'm sure my parting with her will be no less bittersweet.
