Sing like the wind
The tops of the crepe myrtle branches are scraping against our upstairs windows. Its rough tips are making a scratching sound on the glass that verges on groaning.
At night, when the wind is blowing, it sounds as if somebody might be in trouble but if so, they may have to free themselves from this Gordian knot because when it’s cold outside and warm underneath the covers, paralysis sets in like rigor mortis.
I love weather. What we had recently. What we have when the wind blows. What winter is supposed to be.
Weather is wind, weather is rain and weather is snow, snow if you’re lucky enough to get some like we did 22 years ago.
Weather is a treat, something you don’t have every day. Something unusual. Something you’ve almost forgotten about because it’s been so long.
That’s why people who were here for the snow day, won’t forget it soon. It was unusual, a treat and it had been a month of Sundays since the last one.
Hot weather doesn’t count. Not after the first week of summer, when we’re barely out of spring and it has been awhile since we’ve had heat and so the first hot days seemed novel, almost welcome, like a college roommate who shows up at your door after 50 years.
Heat is weather for a week, maybe two. Then it’s just hot and seems like it’s been like that forever. Weather isn’t weather if it’s your default position, your temperature screensaver.
Weather sounds different. There’s the swish of the palm leaves. The almost alarming acceleration of the wind that makes you wonder how hard it can blow and how many branches it might bring down until it stops.
Weather is drama. Not knowing how things are going to turn out. Maybe 58 to Tehachapi and 5 over the Grapevine will never open again. We could be isolated, and if so, would that be such a bad thing?
Weather makes the world look different. The mountains clear to the east and south make us return to our stock description: “It looks just like Boulder here.” For a moment, you wonder why the song wasn’t called “Boulder to Bakersfield.”
Weather makes the liquidambars hail sticker balls and leaves a blanket of them on the grass. So many, how can there be more up there, but when you look up, there are more. Sticker balls are like grains of sand on the beach. We won’t run out soon.
Weather drinks differently. Goodbye white wine, beverages that might as well have umbrellas in them or the see-through spirits. Time to go brown, brown or purple. Your bourbons, your whiskeys, your brandies.
Open the liquor cabinet and move the whiskeys and bourbons to the bow and slide the gins and vodkas to the stern.
Don’t be afraid of making a Manhattan or an Old-fashioned. Those are weather drinks that will keep the cold at bay and the warmth inside your body.
Weather is red wine, not just any red wine, or red wine where you can see the bottom of the glass, but red wine that’s so red it’s purple and so thick it rivals blood.
Weather is fresh bread. Honey wheat berry bread, which I made a couple of days ago with last year’s yeast. The bread didn’t rise, it sunk, collapsed back onto itself like a doughy black hole. Weather isn’t caring about whether it rose twice or sunk twice because it still tastes good.
Weather is soup. Chicken soup. Barley soup. Italian wedding soup.
Weather are the sheepskin slippers your future daughter-in-law gave you two Christmases ago, Woolie Bullie socks and the soft brown alpaca woolen sweater from Peru your brother offloaded because it sheds like an Akita and his wife couldn’t stand it.
These are a few of our favorite things. Weather makes them possible. Weather makes them sing.