A little more on perspective

It's been raining in Portland (yeah, I know, big surprise), which is unusual for this time of year. Usually, the rain tapers off and stops in late May or early June, and doesn't come back until the fall. But yesterday and this morning, there have been relatively long stretches of soft, gentle rain, the kind that you just know makes all of the stuff growing outside very happy.

When I lived on the east coast, rain in the summer was a regular thing, especially storms that included lots of lightening and thunder. When I was in grade school, playing hopscotch or jump rope out in the street with my friends, we'd sometimes get caught in a passing thunderstorm that sent us scurrying to my front patio, where we sat under the awning, shivering and watching the lightening in relative safety, waiting out the storm until we could go back to jump rope or jacks or whatever we'd been doing before the rain arrived. I loved the smell of rain on hot sidewalks. Still do, but it's rare to catch that smell here in the Pacific Northwest, where thunderstorms are a rarity and summer rain equally so.

It's been interesting to watch my perspective on summer rainstorms modify in the eleven years since I left New Jersey and moved to the west coast. Back then, I found rain in the summertime annoying as hell. Now, knowing how much we need rain during these dry months, I'm kind of thrilled when an unexpected day or two of rain happens.

See? It's all about perspective. The rain doesn't give a rat's ass about me or how I might feel about it. I guess I might as well welcome it, huh?