Rainy Season Lessons

Rainy day outing.

Rainy season is our “autumn” over here. Our actual autumn is more like spring. Sweet, cool nights but warm days, bright sun and deep blue skies, flowers everywhere. Sadly, it’s a rare tree that changes color, but the high elevation and low latitude of our area make for generally lovely weather. So lovely, in fact, that there is no central heat or air here. Most of the year this works just fine, but we did finally buy a wood stove for the cold-concrete winters and there are a few sweltering weeks each summer where we contemplate putting in a window unit, but they are gone before we can act on it and we receive our annual justification for putting that purchase off.

So autumn is like a second spring before it slips smoothly into a clear, cold winter, and late summer’s rainy season is our fall. Cool breezy days, overcast skies that clear up frequently enough to remind us of the rich blue firmament we so love, ethereal mists in the mountains, jeans and light hoodies to keep warm. And the ability to once again enjoy a hot cup of coffee without sweating over it. We leave our windows open to enjoy the fresh breeze and rush to shut them when the rain picks up and blows in sideways.  We keep our lamps on most of the day, dream of fires in our wood stove, though it’s not cold enough for them yet, and find ourselves humming Christmas songs. In August. 

Though I still miss a good mid-south autumn, with flaming trees and crisp, cold air and the lonesome calls of geese and blackbirds, I am learning to see the beauty of our new home. To enjoy where I am. To pick out the joys of rainy season and focus on those. To adapt to THIS life, not one I sometimes dream of. To finally get over wet feet and buy a pair of nice rain boots. (When you know it has taken me 7 years to make that purchase you know that a window AC is nowhere in our future!)  Rainy season doesn’t replace a true autumn, but it has its own beauty. And I am thankful.

Misty morning at the lake.