It’s a Saturday morning in October. The sky is an amalgam of grey and white, the trees are yellow and red and brown. The wind is blowing and it is raining steadily.
In other words, life is good! I LOVE this weather. I have finally given up pretending that I prefer clear blue skies and puffy white clouds. Give me ominous dark thunderheads and pouring rain any day. I could say that this is due to my inherently grim yet poetical nature, but really it is most likely due to my inherently lazy nature and my love of curling up on the couch with a book.
It is also due to my inherently neurotic nature, meaning: when it is nice out, I feel guilty for staying inside. I should be outside, enjoying the nice weather! It’s October! How many more nice days are we really going to have? (A: In North Carolina, probably a buttload. But anyway. My neurotic inner critic is still stuck on Northeastern seasonal temperatures). Molly! The voice says. Shouldn’t you be enjoying this nice day? Go to the park and play Frisbee or just grab a book and sit under a tree! It doesn’t matter that there are bugs underneath trees and the ground is usually wet or feels like it might be wet, whereas the futon in my livingroom is deliciously warm and next to a table where I can rest a steaming mug of tea with Bailey’s in it. My inner critic endlessly urges me outside to play, when the weather is nice. When the weather is bad, it disappears, and I am free, on a lovely cold and wet Saturday like today (and every one knows Saturday is the Best Day), to curl up on the couch and listen to “Wait Wait—Don’t Tell Me” on NPR and make and eat blueberry muffins and surf the internet for hours.
Not to mention that there is something so cozy and comforting about a sky that is blanketed with clouds. It feels like the world has pulled the covers up over its head and refuses to acknowledge the vast blue void of the sky. I like this kind of denial. I can relate.
So there you have it. Give me rain any day.
I Heard Tell 