Why Bad Weather Doesn’t Get Me Down (Most of the Time At Least)

You know that feeling when you wake up but it doesn’t look like morning outside?

When it’s so overcast you almost have to turn on the light.

When the bare branches of the trees shiver against the gray sky.

And people on the streets walk with their head down, sunken in their coats, and then they disappear, and the street is gray and empty under an even grayer sky, only the wind whistles as it goes, makes the old trees crack.

And then rain, cold rain that dies on your windowpane.

That’s poet weather for you.

Wouldn’t you rather have sun and shine and clear sky?

Girls in light dresses, men in shorts?

Rays of sunlight rolling down the street like oranges and lemons?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t entirely mind bad weather.

I find it comforting.

Bad weather’s a good excuse to stay inside and read and write.

To listen to music, cook, maybe watch a film.

Makes me feel that I’m not missing anything out there—that there’s no better way to spend the time.

And if you do have to go out, doesn’t the cold make the return to warmth quite pleasant?

Warmth is one of those things we can’t appreciate until we’ve lost it.

Maybe you’re reading this from a place where November can seem drab and dreary.

Maybe your window is gray and weepy.

Maybe you don’t feel like singing and dancing.

But I say give November a chance.

Make some tea, find a quiet spot, open a book.

Make the tea green or dark if you’re feeling sleepy.

After all, your Circadian rhythm may get tricked by the absence of light into thinking it’s nap time.

Not that a nap would be bad.

But if there are books to read…

Bad weather is good book weather, isn’t it?