From the rocking chair, I have a perfect view of the tree in our front yard. I’m spending quite a bit of time in this rocking chair lately, sitting next to the fire, and reading books, singing, snuggling, and comforting.
So I’ve watched this tree’s leaves change, day by day, from green to fiery red to shriveled brown crisps. And now the tree is barren – twisted branches reaching toward the white sky.
“It’s perpetually 4 o’clock for half the year,” my husband and I joked when we moved to Oregon. We came from Colorado, a state that boasts 300 days of sunshine a year, and we’d been living in the high, mountain desert.
Everyone warned us about Oregon’s dark winters and relentless rain. A friend from Bellingham, Washington shuddered when I said we were moving to the Pacific Northwest.
But I knew I’d love it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Some people walk in the rain and others just get wet.”
I walk in the rain. I love the sound of it pattering on the metal roof and the way it smells in the morning, and how the drops cling to the ivy, and the way it turns the grass almost neon green by the end of December.
I love that the weather men here have dozens of ways to say it’s going to rain – showers and mists, drenchers and drizzles, spates and sprinkles.
And I love winter – bundling up to go outside, eating soup, the smell of bread baking, the fire crackling, the long evenings and still afternoons.
So I’m enjoying this first cloudy, drizzly day of December.
But, I must say, that tree would look lovely with a layer of Colorado snow.
This post is for Steady Mom’s 30 Minute Blog Challenge.
I, too, enjoy a cloudy, drizzly day. Perfect for a nap, or a good book with a cup of coffee. You paint a beautiful picture…
Beautiful post! I love it – especially the picture of walking in the rain vs. getting wet. So often when I am just getting things done I am getting wet but when I stop to smell the roses I am walking in the rain – that is a great reminder to embrace the now. Thank-you!
As a native Arizonan, I had a hard time during the winter in my year in Eugene. The sun came out 5 times in about 3 months and that was tough to deal with! The constant drizzle of rain was easy to become accustomed to, although I did get tired of wiping the dog’s muddy paws after every single trip outside. LOL
And the snow, well, ya’ll just don’t do snow right there. In Arizona, at least southern Arizona, it snows and then melts and evaporates within a day or so. In Eugene, it melted and then froze into slippery ice overnight. With each melting, everything got muddier and muddier, too.
We loved the green up there, the trees, the river, the biking, and the cooler summer temperatures but the final thing that pushed us to return to Arizona was when I got SAD bad enough to impact our lives.
After 5 years back, though, we wistfully look at real estate listings back in Eugene occasionally….especially during the brutal summer heat. 🙂
Wait, I cannot fathom it being so stiraghtfroawrd.