missing spring

Tomorrow's my recital. Nothing more I can do now to prepare, so I'm trying to chill out. Though I do have to clean since I'm having the reception at my apartment, and it needs a good tidying-up.

I've been missing Evanston/Chicago a lot. That's sort of weird, I guess, but I do. Since LA doesn't really have a winter, it also doesn't really have a spring. Spring in Chicagoland is phenomenal. I really wish I were there to see / smell / hear it. The progression of flowers: crocus, those little blue flowers, daffodil, forscythia, tulip, crab apple trees, lily of the valley (my favorite! so sweet, and they smell so lovely), violet, lilac, iris, peony, rose. And the way the leaves start from nothing, and then they're that pale green, and then that deep green. I love that deep green. I miss the lake, and the rainstorms, and running to the Ba'hai temple, and the pretty little neighborhoods and the cafes, and going to the city, that beautiful skyline, Millennium Park, WALKING PLACES. I miss a lot of people that are still there. I miss the way the robins sing, sometimes even in the middle of the night. I even miss the humidity. I somehow felt a gut connection to Chicago, especially in spring and summer when everything is so ALIVE. I don't have that in LA, at least not yet. I never had it for Houston. I do for Connecticut, maybe since I was born there. And Chicago and Connecticut have somewhat similar climates. They have a lot of the same vegetation, at any rate. Well, LA is always beautiful, I should enjoy it. But it's always the same. I like seeing different flowers every week. OK OK OK, maybe I'll go clean now, stop brooding. But I miss it.