Actually, there isn’t anything strange about weather. We can have rain, snow, clouds, sunny skies, cold and warmth with the option to combine as nature and climate see best.
But we look at weather like it is something strange.
Wow, look at those clouds coming in? Hey, I think it’s raining! Did you see how sunny it is?
Some people turn to weather when they can’t think of anything to say. It is my mother-in-laws go to topic.
When am I interested in weather? When it determines if my husband and I are heading out for a tandem ride or how we think it will affect sailing. We used to discuss it like life depended on it when we were water skiers, but we sold our ski boat a few weeks back. Glassy water is no longer an issue. It’s now about how much wind can we expect in the sails?
It’s relative, right?
Who is effected, to what effect and how long will that effect last?
So I have you thinking about weather. And you’re probably at the “so what” stage.
Weather used to make me feel guilty. How can you sit in the house when it’s so nice outside?
Well, I like to read and weather doesn’t effect how well I can do that, especially if I’m reading on a reader.
I like to write and weather is inside my head (the story, that is) so what’s outside is again not an issue. However, I do a lot of “so what’s it feel like, look like? How does it effect a person’s personality? So it is important that I know weather, not in a shallow sort of way, but deeply, personally.
When I went to Sweden to visit cousins, the first thing I noticed was they were very much concerned about weather and seasons.
My cousin’s windowsills had flower pots, usually with flowering plants, red blooms the most popular, and along side the flower pots were little lamps.
In winter, she said, they lit the lamps so it felt sunny outside even when it wasn’t. And the plants bring nature inside the house even when the ground is knee deep in snow.
So maybe the strangeness of weather and our attention to it even when it seems like it has little to do with or a lot to do with our activities is more about how we feel than what we do with it.
Right now, it is hot and muggy outside and nobody is asking why I’m at my desk on my computer and not outside. When I look out the window, the trees burgeoning with dark green leaves and weaving in and out of my view along with the vibrancy of my neighbor’s red roof above their white house makes me happy. I feel good.
The sound of wet pavement shushing when cars drive over it always makes me think of winter slush which strangely makes me feel good. I can recall stepping into slush with my rubber boots when I was a kid. The soft give of it under my weight combined with a warm coat, cozy mittens and the giggles of my friends gets tugged in with that wet payment sound.
So it isn’t weather that is grabbing our interest. I think it’s how it makes us feel. We connect with others when we talk about weather, a shared touch point attached to memory and contentment (or memory and sadness, what have you).
People remember the weather on important days.
We buried my father-in-law in late December. It was sunny but the wind was biting cold. He was a sunny man and losing him froze us. The weather fit. We’d hung a chime right above his grave, and that cold wind kept it softly ringing in deep tones.
It would be strange if we didn’t remember, comment and argue about weather.
#weather
