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Thad and I started reading Eric Sloane's Weather Book again. You've read it, haven't you? If you have, you know, of course, what affection thrives within that sentence. 


Everyone dwells on weather constantly, in the most boring and annoying way possible. Small talk and constant television forecasts, but not once does anyone really care about Weather. Isn't it irrational? And confusing. Such pervasive inconsistency. I am afraid that people never saw me as dwelling fiercely in the other camp, where I ignored it unless I was going to adore it. I never knew what the weather would be and I only said anything about it if it was a paean. Here the weather actually matters, to the people we meet, when we meet anyone. Thad and I are intent upon acknowledging Weather as a very important character in the narrative of our lives. We look up at the sky as much as we can. Eric Sloane is helping.

I think I figured out why rain is such a comforting thing. It is comforting, isn't it? Or is that just to me? Can you think of anything more comfortable and cozy than to snuggle up on the couch and read all of a Sunday afternoon, while the rain beats against the window? It's not comforting at all, of course, when you are in it, so I am ignoring such scenarios and listing my reasons to support my theory. There is the steady rhythm, like a heartbeat, which is soothing. But mostly, it's a matter of contrast. You are warm and dry and safe, and the confidence of the impossibility of the threat reaching you intensifies the comfort. You have to have evil to show how shining and pure the good is. You have to have to have bad guys to make it a story. You have to have the rain to make the blanket and the novel so delightful.

These are my experiences with rain. Pathetic British television on rainy Sunday afternoons with my brothers. Falling asleep in the backseat of the car, watching the raindrops chase each other at the end of family vacations. That endlessly raining spring when Thad and I were married and read an unprecedented number of books. I have blocked all memories of camping.

So you see, I've just been thinking and remembering again, and doing nothing interesting at all. Thad sends his love and has been talking about that cheesecake you used to make. I would ask you to send the recipe, but we wouldn't be able to get the ingredients, and I don't have your magic touch. So we are idealizing it in our memory and will come back to be disappointed some day. Except that I don't think your cheesecake possesses the power of disappointing.