FALLing for the ideal season
By Ashlyn Wuench
The wind whistles through the spaces between branches, the autumn leaves holding dozens of shades of reds, oranges, and yellows, mirroring the soft haze of the sunset. Toss on your favorite sweater and it’s the perfect match for the soft breeze blowing. You’re holding a small basket of apples plucked from the nearby orchard.
Once you arrive home, you turn on quiet, instrumental music and hum along as you slice the fresh apples and begin to prepare a pie crust while the apples soak in spices placed aside. The oven chimes shortly after you’ve placed the spiced apples in the crust. An initial blanket of warm air covers the pie as you close the door. Earl Grey tea has been steeping in the kettle nearby, and you pour a small cup in your favorite chipped but well-loved mug and cozy up with your knitted blanket and read a few pages more into your mystery novel as the house warms with fresh apple pie scents wafting about. The winds outside settle as the kitchen cools from the recent baking. The world feels slow, you feel calm.
Fall is the time for the excitement of summer heat to slow, but still ahead of the winter storm and the spring beginnings. Fall is the sweet spot of the year where the weather is cool, yet you don’t have to bundle up in four layers of clothes to go on a brisk walk. It is also not sweltering to the point of stripping during summer. While spring feels similar in a sweet spot, think of the allergies. Yeah, I’m sorry in advance. Spring opens the year for new life, but fall allows it to fade slowly. Beautifully. It holds a reminder that everything comes to an end. The signal through the falling leaves reminds us that we’ve lived through another year, and it is a beautiful thing to age.
SPRINGing for the best season
By Kathryn Looney
Spring for a college student is like having your mom take care of you on a sick day. Imagine you’re twelve years old, sitting in bed, home from school. Your stomach is upset, your head weighs a ton, and you can’t seem to fall asleep. Maybe something fun was going to happen at school too, and now you’re missing a good time with your friends. But there’s your mom: checking in on you, making you toast, making you soup, getting you refreshing drinks, fluffing your pillow. As a college student gearing up for the busiest time of the year, I think spring is also granting us little kindnesses.
No matter how stressed I am, the sun always cheers me up. Walking toward Bunt in the mornings, I love passing the yellow haze of daffodils underneath the windows of Ytterboe, and smiling as the sun gently warms my face. The blossoming trees both look gorgeous and smell heavenly, and the lawn on the quad is a brilliant shade of green I swear I have never seen before.
Fall is refreshing, and the campus is undoubtedly gorgeous in its flashy warm colors. But spring is the old friend, or mom, that we all need — dropping little kindnesses and visions of beauty at the time of year we most need it!
