weather

The weather has been unpredictable lately. Even more so than usual. And while I know this is natural, nature showing her fiery and moody side, I sometimes can’t help but wish it differently. Lately they predict rain for a week, and the storm clouds just hover above, threatening like a teacher desperate to control an unruly class. Or they predict, finally, a summer day, and I look out the window and it’s raining on the clothes hung on the line outside. And while this means every day is different, while this means every storm is new, unpredicted and therefore more mysterious or dare I say miraculous, the weight of the unknown can still be too wearying.

I’m a planner. I make lists and when I’m done with them organize them. But I love sudden storms, unpredicted with thunderous lightening and a booming voice. I love a sunny day when a cloudy one was expected. I love the thick fog on early fall mornings which others find to be a nuisance. But weeks and weeks of the weather patterns and storm clouds doing as they will, and to hell with the weather forecasts is wearying. It’s wearying from the effort to overcome it.

People used to predict the weather by smell, sight and sound. They watched the behavior of animals, or maybe the direction and way that the breeze blew the fields of wheat or the leaves in the tallest of trees. Now we go to weather.com or check out cnn. If we predict things we avoid catastrophe. If we predict things we can keep them under control. If we can predict everything we’re never surprised. But by doing this it feels like most surprises that creep through the cracks are bad ones. The good ones are rare. I read somewhere recently that your chances of wining the lottery are less than your chances of dying in a car on your way to buy a lottery ticket. That’s great. So how do we possibly keep from getting pessimistic when the only things to happen by chance are bad? How do we stop ourselves from trying to look further and further around the corner, further and further into the future trying to keep the next bad thing from happening. And do we actually do it. If we see the bad thing from around the corner do we actually make it better or just dwell on it further.

So maybe I should stop predicting the weather. So maybe I should go outside and see if it’s raining, or see if it’s sunny. Maybe if I look hard enough at the sky, even though it’s sunny, I’ll be able to see the storm clouds far away that the internet can’t seem to find. So maybe I should just go out in the rain, get as muddy as possible, and let the rain wash the clothes if the sun won’t dry them.