Gin Season
It first occurred to me there are more than four seasons when I worked in advertising. Part of my job was to plan the digital and social content for our clients, figuring out what those brands should say to its target audiences throughout the year on Facebook, Instagram, in blogs. Sitting at my desk in my office after 5:00, sipping bourbon on ice, I realized that, for me, the year didn’t really begin on January 1. It began on September 5, when my kids went back to school. To me, that was a more significant manifestation of a new year. Sometime after that I learned the traditional Chinese calendar , shared by other Asian nations, has 24 seasons called solar terms, two a month, and that each recognizes a shift in nature, usually related to agriculture. For example, early March is the Awakening of Insects, when those creatures, alerted by spring rains, come out of hibernation. In September, the first transition from summer to autumn is called White Dew, a change in the color and...