October 18, 2007 - On the Road Again

Despite the predictions of a few local optimists that we would have an Indian summer this year, the weather here in the Pacific Northwest has been decidedly autumnal for quite a while. "Summer" as we know it never actually materialized here. Except for a precious few hot, sunny days, it seemed that we had hardly emerged from spring before we started wearing fleece again. The more pessimistic among us began preparing for bad weather in August.

For the better part of the year (May through September, in my experience) the view from my window is a spectacular panorama that includes a busy little harbour, a beach with a swimming dock, uninhabited islands, as well as inhabited ones (the larger peeking over the shoulder of the nearer); tall mountains with jagged peaks, snow-capped most of the year for the six years that I've lived here. (People who have lived here all their lives tell me that they used to be snow-capped year round.) There are spectacular sunrises and full moons that shimmer across the water. With windows wide open to the outside, the pleasant sounds of spring and summer filter in: birds singing; the joyous shrieks of children on the beach; waves crashing on the shore at high tide.

During the winter season, except for a few bright days, all of this beauty becomes invisible in the mist; and behind closed windows, the world is as silent as a tomb. Outside are only the sounds of tires swooshing on the wet pavement, the howling of heavy winds through the trees, and the incessant tapping of rain against the windowpanes day after day after day. Although the mist has a beauty of its own, and rain is preferable to snow, I still cannot abide the dismal view from my windows in the winter months. My bones ache from the dampness in the air outside, and my skin itches from the dry heat indoors. If I were staying this winter, I would be virtually guaranteed to be slushed at least a few times by passing cars, and to step into a puddle deeper than the top of my boot at least once. After a month of continuously bad weather, melancholia begins to set in. It's not that bad yet. And, for me, it won't get that bad. I’m treating myself this year to a winter in the sun.

feral@renegaderesearch.org