“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” – John Ruskin
I am apparently not immune from turning into my parents.
Neither of my parents grew up in the age of television but once cable television arrived in their adult years they agreed on a favorite hangout: The Weather Channel. Now boys and girls this was back in the day when The Weather Channel spent most of its time reporting on the weather and therefore before tantalizing shows with titles like “Natural Born Monsters” and “Storm Riders” and “Weather Geeks.” No, it was pretty much all-day weather forecasts and updates, and for the life of me I could not understand why my parents would care about dew points and barometric pressure and precipitation levels. I preferred going outside where there was actual weather to analyzing the hourly forecast.
Now, it is me. No, the background noise of my life is not The Weather Channel. What I do is check the weather on my iPhone a million times each day. Hot or cold, sunshine or rain, calm or wind—I suddenly seem to care.
Our move to The South is partly to blame for the marked increase in said weather-checking because Southern California weather is, in a word, predictable, while Tennessee weather is anything but. I knew this in my little brain before arriving, having spent the first three decades of my life in similar conditions, but coastal living for the past two decades created a form of amnesia that I am working to overcome.
So maybe it is simply that I now need to know when to carry an umbrella. But maybe I am learning to care more about the beauty of our natural world?
Today is Earth Day, an annual day to draw our attention to nature and remember our collective responsibility to take good care of this planet we call home. Earth Day began the year I was born, and although much good work has occurred in my lifetime, it is apparent that revolutionary action is required to provide the care necessary for sustaining this big, beautiful world. I want to care more about that and care less about things far less important.
I grew up caring primarily about sports. And then I grew interested in the news. And now I prefer the weather. It could be that I am finally growing up.
There are several historical markers regarding the Battle of Nashville from the American Civil War in our new neighborhood, including a monument just north of and less than a mile from our current house. I ran over at dawn last week to remember the fallen, and the early morning fog created an appropriately eerie vibe.
“Here I was at the end of America – no more land – and now there was nowhere to go but back.”
“Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going.” – Tennessee Williams, The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore
I sit sipping cocoa in a Seattle coffee shop and let the world slow down. It is a busy shop but not frantic, filled with locals in their regular weekend rhythms, not a selfie-seeking tourist in sight. I only know to be there because they called my daughter in for work, so I am an interloper with a free pass for the morning. I am honored.
Yesterday Pepperdine University announced that my colleague, friend, and teacher, Jim Gash, would be its eighth president. I truly believe that there is no one on this planet who loves Pepperdine more than Jim loves Pepperdine. His administration will undoubtedly be a labor of love.
