Attitudes

[libertango]

I was at a drug store, buying something, and the clerk sent me off with a cheery, "Enjoy the weather, while you can!"

Today has indeed been one of those days that we in Seattle enjoy. The sky a crystalline blue, with puffy clouds. The quality of the light just exquisite.

But we know, as the clerk shows, just how ephemeral this all is. That it could change in an hour, let alone by tomorrow.

As a long-time Angeleno, this still feels new to me. I can write a valid forecast for LA for about six months of the year for you right now: "Early morning low clouds, giving way to wide sunshine." (Which six months is a trickier issue. :)

Here, weather is a variable. In LA, weather is (largely) a constant.

But if you look at the clerk's imperative, there's not only a carpe diem aspect to it, but a memento mori as well... although those may well be flip sides of the same coin.

As Christopher Alexander says about his Quality Without a Name, it is slightly bitter.

Comments

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

Of course, that "if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes" thing can be useful. We don't usually get the kind of relentless, non-stop rain that you see in a lot of other places. It may be grey all day, but the rain will normally let up for a while.

*sigh* There are a lot of things I miss about L.A., and yeah, the weather is right at the top of the list.

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

We get that 'LA weather' for a couple of months, most of July through earlier September. And we get rain and wind November through January.

Any other time it's a roll of the dice, and they get rolled often.

But much of that time if it's raining the sun is shining at the same time, so it's not so bad.

Waterspouts and volcanic eruptions are fairly rare, don't count on them.

[fritz-freiheit.livejournal.com]

I like the "Southern California doesn't have weather, just climate" view. Living in Michigan, I can sympathize about the "wait five minutes" thing. Having grown up in Michigan and having lived in LA, I found that I really did miss the seasons.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

The first fall I spent on the East Coast freaked me out. "All the leaves are coming off the trees!" I wrote to friends back in San Francisco. It was deeply disturbing to a native of the Pacific Northwest.