So, as I try to think about where to begin blogging again, I look outside my window. I see green leaves, flowers, birds, and gray. Lots and lots of gray. The most common question my friends and family ask me since the move is always about the weather. Is it really as bad as they say? Here’s MY unofficial (and true to form, wordy) answer to the common question about Seattle’s winter.
We moved here at the end of summer. I wore my t-shirts a few times and my flip flops for quick trips outside to the van. The first thing I discovered. Things. Never. Dry. I don’t notice that as much anymore, but I definitely remember feeling that way early on. Maybe I’ve adapted? Maybe it was the season. Don’t know. Anyway…
On moving in day, I asked one of the moving guys when the rain starts. He said “right about now. you just missed summer.” And it was cold that day and I wore a fleece and sipped my latte while they unloaded my stuff. But in the next two months I continued to ask that same question. The usual answer was that “winter” starts in November. When locals say winter, they mean rain. And gray skies. I’ve noticed that it’s really more about the gray skies. And the October weather was hit and miss, but mainly pretty nice. We had lots of good outings, trips to the zoo, and maybe half of the time, a rainy day. I probably wore long sleeves and a sweatshirt jacket for October, nothing unusual. The one thing I remember about October was dreading November. It just kept looming there, the beginning of “winter.”
So it got here. And it rained. Some. But more than the rain, it’s the GRAY! It may rain an hour or so each day. It may drizzle, spit sometimes, or be more of a mist. There may be a rain shower (but I actually like these, when you can actually HEAR the rain it seems more peaceful and relaxing). I only recall ONE day the whole month of November where people used umbrellas. One downpour. That’s it. The rest of the time it was generally cool and humid, but always GRAY! Now, this makes it easy to sleep in, keeps the coffee businesses going (and going, and going, and going…does it make sense now? THAT’s why there’s so much coffee here!), and you get kind of used to it. At least I did. That is, until one day, you see the sun! And THEN you realize what you’ve been missing. You drop absolutely everything, head outside, realize that it’s still really too cool to be outside, but you get in the car and drive (cause those darn evergreens in your backyard make it hard to see anything else!) to find a mountain, a lake, anything sparkling in the sun! You find a boost of energy and suddenly your house is clean. You send your kid outside to play in the backyard, without rain boots! You even begin to wonder if it’s necessary to give the baby his daily supplement of Vitamin D. And then you realize how deprived you’ve been. Just in time for the gray to come back.
But the perk of the winter: there’s still lots of green! The grass, the hills, the evergreens, are all still green. We got to sail on a Christmas boat because the lakes don’t freeze. I never felt COLD in less than a sweatshirt and jacket. In fact, I never pulled out my old winter coat. We had a really cold snap around the New Year. I do remember being cold then, but that’s about my only recollection. I occasionally put the liner in my 2-in-1, but not often. It felt so mild in comparison to what I was used to. And consistent. The temps never seemed to change. Mid-upper 40s. And the mountains got a pretty white coat for the winter. I will actually miss the pretty snow-covered mountains when summer starts. (If summer starts.) We got a couple of snows in the low-lands (and THAT is for a completely different post!) but they didn’t stick around.
So it stayed that way. November. December. In January I started to see some green coming out of the ground, and the tiniest buds on a bush. February. March. By now it was in the 50s. The rain tapered off some, but the gray stuck around. In April we hit the road and headed to MO. We come back to daffodils, tulips, bleeding hearts, and more and more buds on the trees. More and more sunbreaks, too. And our sunny days are now in the mid-60s. I’ll take that! Now it’s May, and those green bits of flowers that started peeking through in January are still trying to bloom. The trees are getting their green on, the azaleas are blooming everywhere and seem to really love the climate here, and the flowering trees are in full bloom. The only word to describe the surroundings right now is LUSH! But still GRAY! Not always, mind you. It’s never always. But those sunny days are becoming such a tease! I’m still in long sleeves and a jacket, except for those few days when the sun comes out. I’m still drinking the morning coffee and checking the forecast, planning my week entirely around when it might be sunny, but still finding that we can go an entire week without a sun on the 7-day forecast. I’m shopping for sandals and making sure I have all of the outdoor gear my family needs. I have online shopping carts with items that I think we need for this summer, but can’t quite bring myself to hit the “buy now” button. It feels like summer should be just around the corner. But is it?
So, I think, in a way, you get used to it. You get through the winter expecting a pay-off in the summer. What I’m not so sure about is when, year after year, summer comes to a close, and the gloom awaits. THAT’s what worries me. But between now and then I have some summer months to enjoy. Sometime. Soon? But one thing’s certain. I WILL enjoy those July and August days when it’s sunny and in the mid-70s. And when the midwest is in the 90s, I WILL gloat! After all, I’ve earned it!
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