Following The Scent In The Light Of Another Season

Assisi, Italy.  By Aaron Huey, in The National Geographic, July/August 2007

The past couple of days have been a bit chillier and wetter than what is normal for this time of year.  Or, perhaps, it just seems that way because of the mild, dry winter and April we had this year.

Somehow, at least for me, the unusual weather conditions left me feeling as if Spring hadn't arrived. Perhaps I am one of those creatures who doesn't respond so much to the season itself as to the change from the previous season.  I barely noticed that change from February to March to April.

However, the chilly, damp weather of the past few days left me feeling, ironically enough, that Spring had finally arrived.  I first noticed it one day last week, when I rode to work.  The rain had just passed; it washed the air with the scent of blooming flowers and reflected a subdued yet forgiving light of a dissipating cloud cover.

I could have followed that scent, in that light, all day.  But that day's ride had to end at work. But, at least, the sky had cleared and I pedaled home in the moonlight.