Talking about the weather

There is something fundamental to humanity that we notice and talk about the weather. Even though we are climate-controlled dwellers of enclosed homes, we will turn on our televisions to discover whether the 25 feet between our car and our place of work will be a sunny or damp sojourn. We never tire of talking about the weather: praising, blaming, complaining.

This week, however, the weather has made a real impact on my life, and more so on the lives of my friends. This weekend, it rained. It was epic. There were the standard jokes about ark-building (which actually DO get old, thanks). Still the deluge continued. By the time it was all over, we’d had more than 10 inches of rain. (Thank HEAVENS it didn’t come down as snow!) On Monday, as it was supposed to stop raining and wasn’t, I got a call from a friend. The water was coming up through the floorboards. Did I have any advice? Of course my advice was to get out and come to my home. Thus it was that three people and four cats joined us for two days. I’d love to say there’s a happy ending, but in truth they’re still displaced. All of their furniture is ruined, many of their belongings are, and they aren’t likely to be back in their own home until next month sometime.

Then, on Tuesday, the weather has been trying to win us back by being the most lovely, clement, soft, gentle, comfortable version of itself you can imagine. The last three nights the boys have come home by way of the park, where they have run and laughed and slid down slides and climbed and NOT WORN THEIR JACKETS because it was so warm. The extra light has been a halo of joy in my evenings.

On our walk home, I’ve watched with great interest the progress of the bulbs. By the bank, where there’s obviously a heat leak, the tulips and daffodils are likely only a week away. There’s a bank of snowdrops on a south-facing lawn. In my own front garden, the irises are out and lovely (I do not remember planting them, I confess!). The crocuses are significantly behind them. The daffodils are about 2 inches high. The hyacinth will bloom this weekend. I suspect the 70 degree weather on Saturday will also bring forth the first of the forsythia, which would be unlovely at any other time but in the newest days of Spring is a shocking delight of sunlight in flower form. I may find an excuse to travel along a local road, once on my commute, which I know is early to the forsythia party.

If past experience holds true, I will likely get very optimistic and convinced that really! This is Spring! I will go and buy some bedding plants. Then we will get 2 feet of snow.

This has never stopped me. In my defense, it also has never stopped Lowe’s from enabling my optimistic bedding-plant behavior.

I love this time of year. It is so miraculous. Through the winter I have looked at pictures of my sons, nearly naked in a lake, and wondered what sort of abusive mother I was to permit them to do that. Weren’t they cold? Imagination and memory fail to stretch to a time of warmth, or even heat — of overhead fans whirring and windows wide. We have stopped believing it is possible by the time spring comes. And yet, here it comes. Full of delights and remorse for the way we have been treated through the cold winter. And we fall in love all over again.