Autumn, Anyone?

I loathe winter. I hate feeling cold, hate shivering, hate the grey of Minnesota from November-April (sometimes May). And I miss the long, lazy autumn in Virginia, Arkansas, and Missouri, where you have three solid months of beautiful colors and above freezing evenings.

But, short as it is, Minnesota's autumn is worth loving. Perhaps people love it here because they know how quick it fades, how fast that first heavy snow can fall. And I think there's something lovely about being able to smell the snow in the air. That snow smell reminds me, vaguely, of that ozone aroma that lingered in New Orleans after hard summer storms, the smell of lightening and non-hurricanes. Completely different smells, different feelings, but echoes of each other in that your nose remembers and acknowledges snowstorms and slanted rains before the rest of your body. Memory is so tied to visuals and sounds, it's nice to give the nose a chance to paint its own picture.

And today, in the middle of a warm, autumn rain, in the three drops that hit my face through the crack in the bus window, I smelled snow.