December Rain

When I got up, it was cool, but dry outside. By the time I left the house, rain was lightly falling. When I reached the light rail parking lot, it had become, as another passenger put it, “a monsoon.” Wind blew the rain into me, leaving dark splotches on my jeans as I gratefully settled into a dry seat by the heater. When I disembarked at my destination, the rain had stopped, and bits of blue showed through the clouds. Half an hour later, sunshine poured down from blue skies marred only by a few windswept gray and white clouds along the horizons. When I got home, however, an hour later, dark clouds were moving back in. We attempted a walk with the dog, but soon gave up as the wind and rain returned.

This is a typical winter (okay, almost winter) day in western Oregon. Rain and wind, occasional drying spells, more rain. We enjoy the brief visits by the sun and accept the wet days as the price we pay for living in a place where green, growing things are abundant and drought a rarity. Where only once every fifty years or so do we get buried under feet of snow, and where twisters and typhoons are almost unknown. (Strangely enough, not long after I wrote this, a tornado ripped through little Aumsville, Oregon. How weird!)

Rain? Well, yeah, it does bring flooding and seeps in through leaky roofs. (Glad we have a new roof for the winter!) But, overall, we can handle it. Everyone knows that true Oregonians are born with webbed feet. (Think Beavers and Ducks.) And if it gets too bad, we only need turn to Genesis and learn how to build an ark.