I grabbed my briefcase and stepped out of my apartment building onto the quiet street. But something felt different this morning. The thick white fog had returned and swallowed everything near and far. Somewhere in the nearby woodland, atop an aged magnolia perhaps, a chorus of sparrows chirped and worked up a Stravinskian dissonance.
Crimson hibiscus buds, ever the symbol of renewal, adorned a stretch of wild shrubs. From a distance, roosters crowed in eager succession, evoking images of the rustic Toishanese village in which my parents grew up.
I slowed my pace with deliberation and gazed down the distant valleys where the southerly wind conspired with the morning sun to disperse the fog. Plumes of white smoke rose from the mountain ridge before they quietly dissolved into the storm-pregnant sky, foreshadowing an afternoon drizzle.
 |
| Spring time on the Peak |
I inhaled the heavy, humid air in a deep breath and the smell was unmistakable: spring had arrived.
 |
| Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky |