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Spring

April 23rd, 2006 Caroline

When I moved to San Francisco 15 years ago, I was one of those annoying transplants who complains about the city’s lack of seasons. I sought out fellow east coast expats and in October we’d sigh over the lack of fall color, too caught up in our homesickness to enjoy the bay area’s golden season of warm fogless days and breeze-free nights.
It took a couple years to let go my stubbornness and not only see but appreciate the bay area’s subtle seasons: warm sunny days in early fall, rainstorms in late fall and winter, warmer and clearer weather in the early spring, giving way to the foggy days and nights of summer. I know never to pack away my wool sweaters, because I will need them in July, but I can also keep out my sandals for February’s warm spell. I can live with that.
I always thought that the dramatic weather — blazing days, hot nights, raucous thunderstorms — of an east coast summer was what I missed most living in San Francisco, but this week I’ve been reminded of spring.

First, we spent five days in Connecticut, where the trees were still bare enough that you could see the contours of the land and the stone walls receding in to the woods. But the willows, apples and maples were all beginning to warm, dotted with a pale fuzz of yellow, pink or green buds. The dirt roads near my parents’ house were lined with drifts of bright yellow forsythia, and the hills brightened by nodding clumps of daffodils. The landscape was waking up.
Then we came to Chicago, and spring looks good in the city, too. Every park is bursting with bright tulips. Dogwood, cherry and crabapple trees are all in bloom, the flowers floating in the air like pale pink and white snowflakes. I taught Ben to recognize azaleas, and to spot the tiny violets sprouting up between blades of grass. The air smells so sweet, I want to breathe it in deep enough to carry home with me.

And maybe we’ll have to add a spring trip east to our annual itinerary.

Entry Filed under: General