On the Arrival of the Rain
It’s summer’s frantic gallop collecting to a lope, then a walk. It’s respite.
Today*, I walked for the first time in five months out into the rain—or what passes so often in Portland for rain: a woodsy-smelling mist, a fine-toothed gray that encloses the world, makes it smaller. I didn’t always, but these days I find it comforting, that damp, dark blanket. It’s summer’s frantic gallop collecting to a lope, then a walk. It’s respite.
The changing of seasons—and so the anticipation thereof—are relatively new to me. Although I’ve lived in seasonal climates before moving to Oregon, I grew up in Florida, and spent a large chunk of my adulthood there, too. To live in Miami, as I did until I was 18, is to live in perpetual summer: even winter nights can reach a sweaty 80 degrees Fahrenheit; the average relative humidity in December is about 75%. Most years, a week of 60-degree weather would blow through in November or so—what we Floridians called a cold front, as sudden and fleeting as a ghost. In high school, we clamored for the opportunity to pull on our early-aughts faux-fur-lined boots; to wear, without sweating, a sweater.
Only moving—to Massachusetts, then Ohio, then New Mexico, then here—would make clear to me my warped perception of the weather. In south Florida, 60 degrees means dusting off your space heater. Almost everywhere else, it’s a springtime temperature, one that portends longer, warmer days ahead. In Portland, 60 degrees shucks me of my fleece, of my rain gear. Of course, it’s all relative: what we call rain here in the Pacific Northwest wouldn’t even register by south Florida’s measure, with its booming thunderstorms that collapse spectacularly (and predictably) on summer afternoons like an argument.
In Florida, I longed for the cold—the “cold”—for its novelty. With seasonal shifts subtle enough to be practically invisible and grocery aisles full of the same fresh, if flabby, produce year-round, any change was cause for excitement. When I first moved out of state for college, winter confounded me. I wore flip-flops to dash out of my dorm room into the snow for a private phone call, not wanting to take the time to don real footwear and not believing I really needed to. During the year I spent in Ohio, trying out (and then dropping out of) grad school, I regularly complained about the chilly gray drizzle that fuzzed out what felt like half the year—and that, thanks to the smallness of the town and the lack of parking options near campus, I was forced to walk through daily. Now that I had real cold, at scale, I longed for the friendly convenience of the sun. I even bought a necklace with a silver, Florida-shaped pendant—a sentimental trinket that would seem unthinkable to those who know me now.
In Portland, the seasons descend stealthily but wholly: in early July, sunset’s tendrils still glow the sky pink at 10 p.m.; by December, we’re plunged into complete darkness before dinner. The days expand and contract in the other direction, too: the summer sun taps on your sleeping shoulder by 5 a.m. at the latest, while winter lets you laze until 8. While the temperatures aren’t extreme—or at least weren’t, though climate change is changing that—the oscillating daylight and the onset of the rainy season completely change the way one moves through life. Portland summers are beautiful and flower-filled and frenetic, with everyone cramming as much sunlit festivity into our four reliably dry months as possible. Winter can stretch long and languid and, for many, maddening—literally. Along with sun lamps and prescription-strength vitamin D supplements, many Portlanders cleave to a directive to travel somewhere sunny in February. Some leave altogether, relocating to—or back to—places with brighter climes.
I’m not as affected as some—a relative ease I owe mostly to a robust support network, years of therapy, and recovering from anorexia. (Santa Fe’s winter was pivotal in pushing me towards wellness, terrifying weight-gain notwithstanding; while starving yourself is difficult, starving yourself in single-degree temperatures is borderline impossible.) But still, I have my moments in the winter: the fast and encompassing darkness, the everyday need for waterproof fabrics. The endless efforts to eradicate mud: out of my dogs’ paws; up off the floor.
But this year I find I’m looking forward to the darker, wetter months, inconveniences and all. Winter means more time for quiet, for reflection, for shifting from doing to being. It’s moss-covered tree trunks and sleeping bears and, if we get lucky, naked branches silhouetted with snow’s glow of white.
And it’s only one step in the larger cycle. The onset of winter means summer will come again, with its bounty of strawberries then blackberries then peaches. Seasons offer a yearly lesson in impermanence and renewal: they show us that looking forward can become a practice, as much as can enduring drear.
Besides, the rumors are not true. There are sunny days in Portland’s winter, or at least sunny moments. And in January, a single hour of brightness feels like the gift it is any time of year.
*Note: This essay was not actually written today today. But it was “today” in August. :)