We got along fine

I missed my writing appointment yesterday. I'll be back with a post later today. In the meantime, maybe this photo will tide you over. I took it at the end of July. I should have been diligently packing up our house on Bainbridge. But when the sun (!) comes out (before 4pm!) in the Northwest, you can't be stuck inside a silly house doing something so mundane as packing.

Last week, Cliff Mass (University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and renowned Seattle weather prognosticator) was discussing how this September will likely stand as a record breaking warm one for Seattle. Indeed, we had a handful of sunny 80-degree (give or take) days around Labor Day, and I basked in every one of them. This week, we're back down to low 60s and gray. I feel a little bit ridiculous lamenting the arrival of fall when most of you probably met up with it weeks ago. The climate here is just so different from the midwest stuff I grew up with. It's no exaggeration to say that 9 months out of the year are gray here. Really, it's more like 10, but I know how sensitive the Seattle folks are about their weather. The Chicago fall, winter and spring I grew up with certainly had its low points. But there were also the moments of sun drenched, crackly leaf underfoot, crisp clear cold, snowy muffled quiet, budding trees, moments of new that mixed things up. The weather in Chicago is far better than the Northwest gives it credit for.

I've become obsessed with weather since moving here. I never gave it much mind because I didn't really have to. I knew what to expect, it did its thing, I did mine. We got along fine. I looked forward to packing away sweaters for sundresses, swimsuits for boots. Though I am at odds with most genres of change, I truly appreciate the change in seasons. People around here wear their dismissal of the perpetual gray and rain like a badge of pride, a small price to pay for the lush landscape. And it's true. Seattle is bursting at the seams with beauty. But oh, the weather.