One of those strange posts where I feel the need to wax poetic about rainy weather.

[juushika]

I could review the rain like I would a book or piece of chocolate. It has variety enough, a hundred different characters for a hundred different days. The only difficulty would be to declare one state better than the other—that, and to keep up with how frequently the states change. Today is spring rain in the winter: a thick and heavy blanket of rainfall, inescapably saturating; the raindrops are solid—not hard or swollen, not light and far from mist, but the in-between point where they are strong and distinct but gentle on the skin; the temperature of both rain and air is mild leaning towards cool, the sky is solid pale gray, and all the streets are mist-fogged. This is the rain that will make the spring vivid and verdant, trapped in the winter when the only colors are gray on gray on gray,. It's omnipresent but surprisingly mild, and no one is shivering but everyone has raincoats and wet hair.

People come inside and make sarcastic comments to one another about this nice weather we're having, but there's no irony for me. I love it. There are a few places I could happily live, places all over the world—I'd be content to pick up and move to Sweden, and living in Great Britain is my dream—but I couldn't stand to live in a place where it doesn't rain, and if I left this valley I would miss it, miss the rain, the real rain, rain to soak your hems and flood the sidewalks and bring the sky to earth.

I guess you have to feel that way, to be happy living here. You have to be passionate about the rain. I suppose it's silly to write about that. But I am, and I do.