A Love Letter to the Seasons

Before coming to Oberlin last year, I had only lived in one city my entire life: San Francisco. The city of sourdough and cable cars, home to the bustling Mission district, Castro Street with its rainbow-painted crosswalks, and a small but breathtaking Chinatown with hanging lanterns and bakery lines out the door. Of course, there were quite a few differences between my home state and the lovely Ohio—cicadas and cornfields, to name a few—but I can honestly say what most surprised me about living in Oberlin was the seasons. More specifically, how different each season was from the others. 

If you’ve ever visited SF, it was probably about 60 degrees and foggy. Because it’s pretty much always 60 degrees and foggy. There’s a little variation in sunniness throughout each neighborhood, but if you look towards the mountains you can usually count on seeing a thick, dense layer of fog, which the locals have lovingly named “Karl.” 

Here in Oberlin, however, this is not the case. When I first saw the cliche, postcard-esque scene of the fall leaves blanketing the grass at Tappan that marked the transition from summer to autumn, I was positively gobsmacked. Yes, I had heard tales of the beauty of fall—the trees changing colors, the piles of dried leaves tempting you to cannonball into, the soft breeze chilly enough to break out your cozy cardigans—but I suppose I knew it all in the abstract sense. Seeing the seasons change in Gilmore Girls was one thing, but watching it unfold in real time was another entirely. The sunlight peeking through the trees would paint the orange and red leaves gold, like straight out of a Hallmark movie. Simply put, I became enchanted. 

Each day on my walk to class, I would look up at the trees and compare the amount of leaves left on them since yesterday, like nature’s built-in calendar for watching the time pass. (There’s nothing really like that in San Francisco; Karl is always Karl, gray and hazy.) Fall also became one of my favorite seasons for purely outfit-related reasons—it was cool enough to wear warm sweaters and crocheted scarves but not so cold that you show up to class with a bright red nose and dripping boots. 

After witnessing the dazzling display autumn put on, I thought to myself, “Surely, nothing could beat this.” But oh, how I was wrong. I wish I could put into words for you the pure, childlike glee I felt when I first saw the snowfall in Ohio. It was Halloween and I was surrounded by my friends, huddled over a campfire as we passed out candy to the kids in the neighborhood. As the first few snowflakes fell, all of my stubbornness at not personifying the California-kid stereotype went out the window. I reacted in the way in which you would expect anyone who is seeing snow for the first time to react, which is to say, I squealed and jumped around for about 20 minutes while my midwestern friends watched on, bewildered. They lovingly teased me about my Californiality, making bets on how many times I would slip on the icy ground. (For the record, it was only about 3 times, which I think is pretty respectable.) When I think back to my first winter at Oberlin, my memories are filled with nights of snowball fights, hot coffee, laughter, and snow-baseball (pro-tip: it’s difficult to catch the ball when it immediately falls apart upon contact with the bat). 

Last on the list for me to experience at Oberlin was spring. Now, let’s get something straight. As much as I have referenced SF to be a cold, gray, depressing city, it is, in fact, my favorite place in the world. Yes, it is often cold and gray. Depressing, however, I disagree with. My favorite type of weather is foggy and overcast, maybe even a little rain. This being said, I did understand the appeal of watching the winter melt into spring, the sunlight venturing out more and more each day. I thought birds chirping in the trees at the start of spring was the kind of thing that only happens in the movies, but apparently that is pretty accurate. You never really notice how much you miss the birds chirping until you don’t hear it for a few months. 

And that was my first year experiencing the weather changes as most of the country does. I still love the cold and foggy days in San Francisco, but I also have a newfound appreciation for each of the seasons. Well, maybe except for summer, where Oberlin gets as hot as 90 degrees. I think I’ll stick to foggy San Francisco in those months.