In Usa |work|: Seasons

Spring arrives not all at once, but like a deep breath held too long finally being released. In the South, it starts early—February, sometimes January—when the camellias in Charleston still hold pink fists of bloom, and the air smells of wet earth and barbecue smoke. By March, the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., draw crowds like a religious pilgrimage. Pink and white petals drift into the Tidal Basin, blurring the line between water and sky.

The Great Plains offer a different kind of summer: golden wheat fields rippling like inland seas, county fairs with pie contests and demolition derbies, and nights so starry you forget cities exist. And in the Pacific Northwest, summer is a secret everyone wants to keep—dry, 75 degrees, mountain views, and wild blackberries ripening along every trail. seasons in usa

The Northeast gets its picture-postcard snow: Vermont ski resorts, Central Park blanketed in white, Boston’s brownstones with smoke curling from chimneys. But also the grind—shoveling sidewalks, delayed trains, the gray slush by March that makes everyone forget why they ever liked snow. Spring arrives not all at once, but like