Wintertime

Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope;
Winter alone reminds us of the human condition.
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

Winter is my favourite season. It's not just the low temperatures, it's the smell that's in the air; hits you in the nose as the icy feeling explodes inside. I don't know what it's supposed to smell like, but it seems to me that winter (or coldness) elsewhere has the same scent. The moist grass plus ozone scent. The kind that greets me in the early hours when I had the chance to stay at grandma's place at Taipei's Yangmingshang, the same that is perceived in the moist staircase of the local YMCA, and the exact copy from the upward aircon shaft that are really seats at Chiang Kai Shek airport. A remarkable scent, and it tells of the most exquisite quarter of the year. And it just started last week here.

The coldness of winter wakes me up, but only when I am first able to wake up in the mornings. Some choose to hibernate, like a bear. Winter makes me want to hug someone, anyone. And I would if not for social norms that might put me in jail for doing so. Winter makes people more human. Winter makes people fat, and cute, because one needs to wear lots of clothing. Layer upon layer.

Like the layers of moisture hanging in the air. The dew point is now almost equal to the room temperature in the early hours. The air is saturated with water. And one becomes a dragon that breathes out vapour. But that's only in the mornings. In the afternoons, the humidity dips right back to 50%. But only when it's not raining. Like today, because a high pressure system is trotting up in the next few days.

I think Perth is lucky to have the sort of summer and winter that's hard to find elsewhere. It's not like the smoggy sort that I have the impression other places have. It's the clean/non pollution sort of winter.

May you have a good winter. And Merry Christmas.