The View from a Drawbridge

It’s another rainy Seattle day. Just as it was yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that. You don’t realize how much you thrive on sunlight until it’s taken from you.

I’ve only lived in the Pacific Northwest for a little over a year, but I’m already sensing a pattern. This time of the year, it would be quite easy to burrow beneath a heavy woolen blanket of gloom. Hibernate until Spring.

“How do you stand it, year after year?” I asked a friend.

“You have to find the beauty in the gray,” he said.

And it may take some effort, but there is beauty in it. For one thing, because it’s so gray, when you see other colors they seem unbelievably vivid. Even the red of a stop sign becomes beautiful.

You also get the feeling from all this rain that everything is cleaner, and greener, and thriving. Life, nature, is all around you. Even in this big city, you feel as though the air you are breathing is somehow better for you.

Also, the fact that it’s raw and wet outside gives you an excellent excuse to snuggle up with someone. (Yeah, right. As if I need an excuse.)

And just as other colors become vivid, other seasons become vivid as well. Summer here is glorious. You find it impossible to wipe the smile off your face. You appreciate everything so much more because you know that you’ll only have it for so long. You take nothing for granted.

Maybe we need to look at life, in general, this way. You only get so much of it. Savor it. If that’s the lesson in the gray, then it’s a true gift, indeed.