Chill in Seattle

I'm not wise at all. I told you, I know nothing. I know books, and I know how to string words together -- it doesn't mean I know how to speak about the things that matter most to me.
--André Aciman

Every self-appointed member of the blognoscenti soon finds himself pontificating on topics about which he knows little, but on which he doesn't hesitate to speak at length. Such a self-appointed expert may within a few weeks time spew forth, for example -- in pompous bursts of High Academic English -- unreadable essays on journalism, economics, Shakespearean pot smoking, constitutional theory, the political status of colonial dependencies, and -- as his delusions of grandeur become ever more divorced from reality, and his sentence structures ever more strained -- mathematical discourses on irrational numbers and absurdly simplistic comments on quantum mechanics.

The only cure, aside from psychoanalysis or, perhaps, electroshock therapy, is for the blogomaniac to sit back, breathe deeply, and demand of himself an essay based on his own personal experience -- not on his half-baked book learning. Speak about things that really "matter most to me," in other words.

Take the weather, for example. (In Seattle, that last sentence elicits immediate Henny Youngman-esque rejoinders, ones that I'll now ignore.)

Our relationship with the weather is never abstract, always direct and personal. I understand that most of you fellow Americans are suffering from the much-denied outcome ("liberal pseudo-science!") of global warming. Y'all seem trapped under a one million square mile "heat dome", making your lives a living hell, if news reports are to be believed. But here in the Northwest Corner? Au contraire, mes amis. We're still waiting for summer to arrive.

According to the Seattle Times, we've had 78 minutes of summer so far in 2011 -- right up until this, the 20th day of July. To be precise, we had 12 minutes of summer on July 2, and another 66 minutes (hooray!) of summer on July 6 -- "summer," for our purposes, being defined as any temperature of 80 degrees or higher. This morning, I was so chilly when I got up that I almost turned on the furnace, which would have been in utter violation of my personal furnace ban, running from June 1 to October 1.

Even when it's been "warm" this year -- i.e., over 65 degrees -- it's often been sprinkling.

But here in the Northwest, we resemble our climatic cousins, the English. Like the Brits, we might mutter about the weather, but we'd never move away. When someone tells you that he's leaving Seattle because of the rain, or the lack of sunshine, you can bet he wasn't born here. He's a carpetbagger, an interloper who came here because he was unhappy somewhere else, and who's now moving on because he's unhappy here. But he carries his unhappiness around with him, a little rain cloud above his head. It ain't gonna get no better, no matter where he runs to next.

In my neighborhood -- as in most Seattle neighborhoods -- it's a matter of environmental pride that we not water our lawns in the summer. We watch them turn gradually brown during June, stay brown throughout the summer (needing no mowing!), and come back green and healthy when the rains return in September. But today, I look out my window and what do I see? I see that my lawn, and everyone else's, is as soft and green as though it were April. Rain. Precip. Mother Nature's own sprinkler system. When she slams one door in your face, she hands you a silver lining with the other. So to speak.

It may be cool out this summer, but it isn't cold. I can walk out the door anytime I want, wearing only (above the waist) a t-shirt, and not feel uncomfortable. Just cool. And pleasantly non-sweaty. It may rain, but it rarely pours. I can walk in a summer sprinkle -- still wearing that non-sweaty t-shirt -- and get only pleasantly damp. Wet t-shirts do dry without complication, by the way; that's their big advantage over silk business suits. Which Northwesterners rarely wear. Not even CEO's like Bill Gates.

If this were a "normal" hot summer, spring would have been long over. Only the occasional hardy dandelion would still be displaying a bit of color. But as I walk around the neighborhood today, I'm swimming in vernal abundance, engulfed in sweet smelling floral displays. The flowers began blooming in late January -- a mild winter -- and many are still blooming today.

Sure, we'd like it to be warmer. And sunnier. But we adjust. We still hike -- cool temperatures are great for hiking, and a little rain never hurts. We picnic -- well, yeah, the potato salad does get a little runny, the sandwiches a little soggy, but we just duck for cover. "Someone left the cake out in the rain" -- ah, who cares? We still camp -- we just build the campfire up a little higher, and stake the rain flies a little more securely. The Mariners still play baseball (as if anyone still cared) -- they just close the dome.

Northwest weather teaches us to temper our expectations. To avoid being devastated when the barometer drops. To enjoy the beauty of forests and mountains when they're touched by fog and drizzle, as well as when kissed by the sun. To enjoy what we're doing and the people we're with -- even when the weather isn't "perfect," even when not everything's gone exactly according to plan. To enjoy life all the more, many times, just because it doesn't always go according to plan.

Our weather is flexible, and that may have taught us a bit of flexibility in response. As a result, I submit that we're less apt than many folks living elsewhere to whine at every setback, to complain at every obstruction, to feel devastated at each of life's vicissitudes, to constantly fear we're missing out on something to which we're entitled. We're chill. We go with the flow.

Life in the Northwest Corner's good, very good, even if not perfect.

And that's something I didn't have to learn from books.