I love the state where I live. I hope you love yours, or at least its little flashes of perfect.
For example, I love a summer day of 81 degrees Fahrenheit and a sky so blue clouds don’t dare. I love the smell of sage underfoot and eucalyptus that should never have been planted overhead.
Most of all I love the first rain.
The SF Bay Area goes dry ’round about May 10th, and yes, the date is a guess but I’ve lived here a long time. And by dry I mean through our skin and flesh to the last cell of our marrow. We think before running water to rinse dishes and we compromise our values for flowers. We love the dust of our hills but not in our back yard; we are only human. We build swimming pools in the back yard, then we stretch out on concrete pavers at 2:10pm on a summer afternoon and all traces of fear and sorrow fly out of our bodies. Then we roll once more into the water. We understand the difficulty of this strategy.
The return of our rains is less certain. Might see a random shower in July. Everyone squawks. Might get another in September, maybe even a drenching. But we still doubt the rain is real. Come October, if it begins to fall in earnest we exhale in relief and wipe cobwebs out of our waterproof boots. If, on the other hand, the rains of November hiss into the dry dirt and evaporate, or threaten but never arrive, we grieve. Grieve and prepare for drought.
It’s the end of October now, so we shall see. Weather services predict inches and inches and inches this winter. We shall see.
But I love my state because that first rain in autumn arrives as a miracle. Every single time some part of me thinks, “I had forgotten this was possible.” Sure, our roads get slick, and people panic on the freeways, but petrichor in the air, and reflecting drops on the last leaves on a rose bush – irresistible hope.
Happy weekend, everyone. See you next Saturday.
14 Responses
Lovely post and incredible photo that I think I remember from your camping trip with your sister. I can smell the petrichor when I read your words! Thanks so much for the relaxing interlude to make a stressful Saturday afternoon easier. Happy weekend to all.
My pleasure. May we all take a big breath:)
What a refreshing love letter to your home. All I can say for mine is “October in New England.” People come from all over the world to see what I drive past when we’re out of milk.
Lovely weekend to everyone, and here’s to a boring Tuesday here in the States.
Ha! You have a very special path to milk. Here’s to the boring!
I agree with my whole heart that New England is THE home of all things Autumnal. I live in Arizona (3 straight days of rain-hooray!!) and just returned from Massachusetts. The Halloween vibe laid on top of the sense of history and breath-taking fall colors just made our visit to your part of the country ideal. Lucky you-I’d be going out for more milk whether I needed it or not!
Hello Lisa, I thought you went to kindergarten in a different state, but this is a beautiful homage to California. I am not sure I had such a strong sense of place in kindergarten, but I appreciated living in a comfortable house, and I remember our weekend trips to Canton to visit our grandparents. We always took the old Route 91, which had no traffic then, and led through interesting small towns featuring clock towers, waterfalls, and early pioneer stone houses. Later I discovered myriad interesting things about Ohio, but in kindergarten I probably would have talked about those rides to Canton.
–Jim
Quite lovely, the thought of a family driving down a road without traffic, past the kinds of American small towns it’s hard not to love.
We moved to California when I was 4, so I did kindergarten here.
I envy your Maritime climate, with the mild winters and the warm, but not overly hot summers – I know, July and August are paradoxically cooler in SF than May/June or Sept/October because of the ocean currents. But I also that know your climate is changing, and that this year you had unexpected heat spells. And a super El Nino is forecast to bring a lot of rain later this fall, and even into the winter/spring. (I know this, because I am designing a garden in the Bay area).
In contrast, where I come from (the Northeast), we have a Continental climate with frigid winters and searing summers. But autumn is a very colourful, beautiful season because of the changing colours of the sugar maples and other deciduous trees and shrubs. People come from all over the world to see these brilliant jewels of colour. During our seasonal visit to the Gatineau hills near Ottawa, we look over the Escarpment, and join Japanese, Middle Eastern, Chinese, and many other nationalities in contemplation of that extraordinary beauty. Because we are in effect representing the host country, and they are our honoured visitors, we always offer to take a photo of the entire family grouping, the lovers with their arms around each other, the young friends laughing it up….for a brief moment, nationalities and languages don’t matter, we’re just human beings enjoying a common experience. I hope when they are older, they will look back at these photos, and they bring back happy memories of their youth.
Oh, how wonderful, you’re designing a garden here! I would love to see photos at some point. Will you be doing just the plants? Or also the hardscaping?
And your approach to autumn leaves, and the people from everywhere admiring them in their season, thank you.
Florida here. Political nonsense and unbearable humidity still front and center. I voted. Encouraged others. My brain is still.
Good job. Sorry there’s nothing you can do about the humidity, but you are surely doing everything for our upcoming Tuesday. My sister and I will be traveling to another congressional district to poll watch. Leaving it all on the field, as they say. Hope your brain can rest.
I lived in beautiful Massachusetts until I was 12. Now I enjoy the lovely Pacific Northwest which can’t be beat. I don’t think we got to 100 this summer, and no wildfire smoke blew our way. Hooray! We are behind on rain, but it returned this week and no one complained because we needed it. Cleaned the neighbor’s ponderosa pine needles from the gutters this morning. And my Gingko tree is all gold and casting a lovely light in the backyard, which I can see from my chair.
Will gather for one more neighborhood protest on Tuesday at noon, and then meet to discuss what we will do next! Hoping we keep our democratic governor, and that blue wave is monstrous!!
No wildfire smoke this summer? That’s excellent news. I can smell the ponderosa pine as you speak, and see the light through the golden gingko. Thank you.
I am curious to see how far askew our climates will go. Living in MA is generally okay although I’d prefer to be closer to the Atlantic coast in a house on a tall stone cliff. Coastline erosion is a big problem and can be seen easily after each ocean storm. Living in a home at or below sea level is a big gamble.
Rainfall is unpredictable. Due to lack of rain, the stream on my property has been dry for months.
The Fall color is beautiful. The season is changing as the leaves are falling quickly. We are beyond color peak.
Will the snowfall eliminate the dry conditions? Maybe? Maybe not?