juushika

Sometimes I think I could blog about just the weather. That's ridiculous, of course—I go for days without seeing the world outside, hermit that I am. But when I'm out like this, sitting before wide windows, I'm in constant awe of our weather. It rains for the majority of the year around here, and I imagine you have to be someone like me to think that beautiful—but the constant rain isn't boring, it isn't dull. Every moment is unique. Right now we have sunshowers—a silver cloudhaze, but the bright sun beginning to burn through; the light shining through clear, clean air; a heavy sprinkle, a light rain, pinging on the sodden brick sidewalk. The foxes are preparing for their wedding, and the air is sweet.

The sun just broke through, and the rain has slowed to the rare drop.

Give it five minutes, and it'll be something entirely different.

I am doing well today! I have some minor, lingering congestion, so mild that I'd doubt I'd notice anything outstanding if it hadn't been preceded by a fever. My throat is slightly sore, and my lymph nodes swollen. This is the best cold I've ever had, insofar as there is such a thing. (On a surreal note, Express, far away in California, reports a sore throat and fever. This I can't explain even with a long incubation period—we've never even met in person! So ... yeah. At this point I'm thinking nationwide conspiracy, what about you?)

On the flip side, we have Company. Boy's father's friend is staying at the house following a motorcycle accident and preceding knee surgery. I am sure that he is a wonderful person, but the house is small and full enough as it is; right now, he's staying in boy's brother's room, boy's brother and his girlthing have been pushed to the living room, and the house is packed. Worse still, boy's computer is currently in pieces, so the room is a mess, there's little ambient noise, and I have few distractions. In a word, I am miserable: stuck in a tiny back room, hearing every goddamned sound of the constant noise in the rest of the house, with little to help me pretend I am the only person there.

Is this the selfish response to someone else's health emergency? Yes, yes it is. I have no excuses for that.

But there you go. I'm in batten-down-the-hatches emergency mode, desperately trying to stay distracted, often failing horribly. I have little social energy, because I am overwhelmed and scared. I am taking every chance to get out of the house that I can get. Starbucks today is a blessing, even if there are approximately a million college students here.

Clear golden sunlight, now; the sidewalk is drying, and the puddles in the street shine.

Today I am wearing a runched, burnt orange shirt and an unabashedly fluffy cream scarf; my hair is down and slightly waved and everywhere, and an amber necklace peaks from my neckline. It's weird, to have another day when I feel lovely, but this is perfect timing for it, in the pale yellow sunlight, when everything else is so appropriately bitter and sweet.

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.

Every now and then I pack my laptop to take it somewhere, and never unpack it when I get home. Often it's simply that I'm lazy, but it tends to coincide with periods where I don't want much to be online—because that's what ends up happening. I use Devon's desktop sometimes, but it is uncomfortable and inconvenient, so when my laptop is hiding in a bag I do little more than check my email and move along, which has been my habit lately.

It puts me out of touch but serves me well, particularly when I do want some time away from the computer. I've been reading and, having caught up with Castle, began watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and much enjoying myself in that quiet way. Halloween and All Saints' passed with nary a whisper, which would have been a disappointment were it not for the wonderful days which preceded them; but as the seasonal focus turns swiftly towards warmth, company, and gifts, I find that I'm still in the mood for darkness.

I understand why thoughts begin to turn to heat and comfort, both physical and emotional, about this time of year—when winter comes on in earnest and there is need of both. Yet the bane and boon of Corvallis is that it is a temperate place: it rains here, it rains for nine months of the year, but all it does is rain. We get ice sometimes, but snow rarely, and more often than not the temperature hovers somewhere decent. It's still rainy and cloudy, you have to learn to live with the wet, and come spring one is glad again to see the sun—but our winters are never bitter, they never beg such a strong need for warmth and comfort, however welcome the both may be.

And the deader the season, the more haunted. I read The Raven to Devon just yesterday, and "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December." The leaves fall and rot and leave the trees bare, the sky stays forever gray, the land is monotone and stark—and wet—and that's as haunting as the darkest October night.

But then, I'm also of the opinion that the hottest, most barren months of summer are haunted, too. You can blame The Red Tree for that.

Regardless, the season for scares may be mostly past but I still want them—gothic novels, misty atmospheres, the dark; fairy tales too, fantasy, stories of borders blurred and haunted; vampires and demons and some dark humor are also welcome. I'm glad that I'm still in the mood for such things, because there's a lot of them that I didn't get to in time for Halloween—and the coming months are long, and dark, and begging to be filled.

So I'm reading, and watching Buffy, and enjoying myself.

It is, perhaps (after two play reviews just posted: She Loves Me and Well), obvious that I spent the weekend in Ashland with my family. The plays were not my heart-beating life-changing picks for the season but this was one of the better trips we've made. I could say much about it, but instead I give you a page I wrote in my Moleskine* on May 15th, written with a pen** making a swift journey towards death, concerning—largely—the weather:

We're at a different hotel this time, one further out of town. The rooms are much larger, with the bedroom and sitting room partitioned; Mum and Papa have one room, while Allie and I share a room far down the hall. And these change are a blessing—it is so much more comfortable here.

Lighting just flashed out the window. I sat down to write not of the rooms—though they do occasion mention—but of the weather. Early summer sun has given way to early summer storms, gusting wind and thick gray sky (still silver with the last of the afternoon's sun), splatterings of rain and now the first rumble of thunder, while wind buffets warm and thick.

Allie is out of the room, exploring with Papa. I've been reading a pair of books interchangeably. The bedsheets here are soft, I found the extra pillows, and I've been wearing my more comfortable PJs for a clothing break before dinner. All is silent but for the ghost of the storm and the sound of the fan, which mimics the wind outdoors.

I was not looking forward to this trip for many reasons—but in this moment, it is wholly worthwhile.

The hotel in question is The Village Suites at Ashland Hills, which I much recommend. Shortly after writing the above we went to dinner at the Thai Pepper, which only provides their vegetarian menu upon request, is a little small, needs a better seating arrangement, and is still my favorite restaurant in town because their Garlic Tofu with Broccoli is exquisite—buttery but not heavy, lots of garlic but slightly roasted by the butter to mellow out the flavor, fresh and plentiful and absolute delicious. Everyone had a great meal, actually. We saw She Loves Me on Saturday and Well on Sunday, matinées both which makes for a bit of hurry to get there but relaxes the pacing on the whole, especially in the evening. Both days were summer-tempestuous: sunny and warm but slightly overcast and muggy, refreshed periodically with warm rain. And so, on the whole, while I can make any vacation stressful for myself, despite unrelenting back pain, always in the midst of thinky-thoughts on my family, this was a lovely, beautiful, and peaceful visit.

* This is the reverse of my large ruled notebook. I have story drafts in the front and sundry notes, reviews, and scraps in the back. One day, they shall meet in the middle.

** The deep dregs of my Pilot V Razor Point Extra Fine pen in black. These are my pens of choice because they're liquid and felt-tip, which means they glide over the page and have a deep, wet, slightly feathery ink; when the pen is empty, though, it makes for a moment of fat wet lines followed by a fine gray scrawl—which I can't help but use anyway, because I don't toss a pen until it stops writing.

Yesterday I went with my papa to the farmer's market. Every autumn a local orchard sells Liberty apples, the apples that which have spoiled me for all others. I am eating one now and trust me, after a Liberty apple all others are mushy and miserable—they're small, crisp, tart red and green apples with lovely flavor and crunch. My family buys them by the crateful as soon as they come into season and then feast on them through autumn and winter, and so I went with Papa and the family dog Jamie to buy them today. The weather the day before (and again today it seems) was mild and warm—so I went out in a short-sleeved hoodie, and of course the rain came down in buckets.

I pulled my hood up over my (freshly-washed, still wet hair) and Papa asked me, what, was I trying to keep my hair dry? By the end of our little walk I was able to wring water from that hood. Papa's hair was plastered to his scalp, and Jamie looked like she was covered in inky feathers rather than fine short fur. There were puddles on the side of the road, almost everyone had umbrellas, and the sky was thick and gray. Dogs are allowed at the farmer's market, but they're not in the booths—so James and I waited outside while Papa made quick purchases in each, standing alone on the dark roadway under pouring rain.

But it was still warm. So warm indeed that on my (admittedly cool) skin, I couldn't even feel the rain: the little pats of water droplets, yes, and the flow of water running down my forearms to drip from my fingertips; but it was a thin, gentle sensation, ghostly even—not because it was cool but instead because the water was just as warm as my bare skin.

The rain was intermittent but when it came, it came on heavy. It enveloped me. It washed my skin clean, the air clean, the street clean; it stained roadways and tree trunks to shining black against which autumn leaves glowed like embers. This was the first real rain of the season that I've walked in, soaked myself in, and properly enjoyed. It rains so constantly here that we all do get a bit sick of it, but because of days like yesterday I wouldn't trade it for much of anything. I grew up here, I learned to enjoy the rain from necessity—but now I love it, wholeheartedly. Pouring rain, clean wet streets, and autumn leaves. It was beautiful.

(The irony being: I still hate showering and hold an irrational fear of standing water.)

This is what autumn and winter usually look like where I live. (That's condensation on the bedroom window, looking out at a pine tree.)

But not today. We have snow! Enough to cancel school, and even Devon stayed home from work today. It is beautiful, so light and fluffy that you can barely feel it (though the freezing fingers don't help.) Furthermore, Woof would like to say that that snow is awesome. Despite the temperature, there's some beautiful sun rays for the pigs to bask in. As always, click through for larger pictures.

( Snow! Three pictures. )