today doesn’t feel like winter

does it?

It’s bright and warm, bright and green.

I hear birds, and children enjoying the last few days of their winter vacation.

But the one thing that ties all of that together and tells me that today is not quite right, not quite winter, is the smell of the air.

It smells like days in late spring, when I sometimes forget about the present and let my thoughts wander to the future. Or early summer when it becomes a bit hard to think about anything at all. I would say today was a blessing if it were not also a grim reminder of climate change. But I digress.

How can I describe the distinctive smell of each season? I don’t think I can. But between every season, there is a morning when I wake up, go outside, and understand the season has changed for good from the way the air smells.

Maybe I’m getting smarter, because right now my senses are telling me it knows the smell between seasons too. But I guess days between two seasons can be a “season” too. Maybe I’ll start designating seasons by smell, excluding days like today.