Weather or Not

All this rain we’ve had reminds me of when I lived on Cape Cod one summer.

It was a different kind of humidity, but vexing all the same. Towels never got a chance to dry out before you had to use them again. Doors and windows swelled stuck.
Here in East Tennessee, little puddles have grown and gained permanency to the point where you could more properly call them ponds. And of course, the mosquitoes have had a field day. The little stinkers are thick this year! Note to self: see about investing in “OFF!”
I don’t know the statistics, but I’d bet the local fair-weather industries like car washes and construction have sadly seen less business this summer.
Prolonged periods of precipitation depress some people. Ever felt like you’d just about sell your soul to see a blue sky?
There’s a short story by Ray Bradbury called “The Long Rain” that has stayed with me for years. The hellish plot involves some astronauts who are stranded on a planet where it never stops raining and there is no shelter. I personally have traveled thousands of miles in an effort to get away from rain and be someplace where I could feel the sun on my skin. Oh, and maybe hear some seagulls calling and waves crashing. But I digress. …

There are upsides, though, to our damp summer (Knoxville’s 10th wettest on record). Grassy lawns that are usually dead, stubbly beige by now are still green. The impatiens we planted back in May are still abloom. And we’ve had a bumper crop of pecans, so the squirrels are happy.
A mild summer and moist soil content should contribute to a more lengthy and intense period of fall foliage this autumn. Which brings us to my favorite time of year: October and “sweater weather” with that cool nip in the air. The smell of wood fires and hot apple cider. You know, after you’ve put your shorts and T-shirts in storage, but before you have to start scraping the frost off the windshield.

Has the summer rain been good or bad? Depends who you talk to. Like Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” We can talk about it, worry about it and prepare for it. But the weather is going to do what it wants regardless. Maybe that’s why we’re so in awe of it – there are so few things left in this world over which we have so little control.
As for me, I’m just going to sit and listen to the raindrops and know that this, too, shall pass.

Playlist:
1. September in the Rain — Frank Sinatra
2. Rain — The Beatles
3. Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again — The Fortunes
4. Baby the Rain Must Fall — Glenn Yarbrough
5. Don’t Rain on My Parade — Barbra Streisand
6. Flood — Jars of Clay
7. The Rain Song — Led Zeppelin
8. Rainy Day Man — James Taylor
9. Kentucky Rain — Elvis Presley
10. Who’ll Stop the Rain? — CCR