Weather Permitting

So, where I live has had an unusually cold, nasty spring.  Unfortunately, most every place in the country can boast a horrific late winter-spring climate.  I have at least been spared tornadoes, ice storms and blizzards.  But temperatures averaging twenty degrees below normal is rather depressing after awhile.

But today!  Today was beautiful and warm.  Today was so nice I ate my lunch on the back porch and only needed a light sweater, not a raincoat and thermal underwear.  It was amazing.  I felt energized.  I wanted to get out and do things, which is what everyone else in my town was doing at exactly the same time.

I went for a run, played outside with my dog and...gasp...drove with my windows down!  It was awesome.  Though I had prior commitments that didn't care one way or another that it was a beautiful day, I still got out to enjoy it.

When I sat down after lunch to plug away at my novel, it was at once nice and disheartening to look out at the beautiful sunshine and not be doing something out in it.  I mean, I was wasting it.  Letting it fall on the uncaring grass, which will grow no matter what is happening in the sky.

But about mid afternoon, the clouds rolled in.  Not unexpected; that's what the weatherman said on the news, and he and/or she is generally correct.  So the rain came and I found something that I like better than warm spring sunshine.

Warm spring rain.

It's terribly melodramatic of me, but I really like it when it is warm outside and it rains.  Cold weather rain in misty and gross.  Warm weather rain falls in plump drops that make nice sounds as they plop into puddles, onto leaves, or various cars sitting on the street.  It smells good, it feels good on your skin.  It gives the world a soft grey color that is completely different than the overbearing dull grey of December rain.  I love it.  I love to walk in it, open the windows and listen to it.

Maybe because water is often used as a symbol of change or motion and growth, but I find that I think and write best when I can sit and look outside at the rain.  I'll write anywhere I can find time.  But if I had my ideal studio set up, it would have a wide desk with nothing on but my computer in a wide room with pale colors, facing open windows that had an interesting view of some idyllic countryside.  Or mountains.  I love the smell of high altitude pine forests, the crisp, yet lush quality to the air.

Sheesh, I'm a romantic.

E. T.