Waiting For Fall

Ah, summer.

I hate it.

Okay, there are a couple of nice things about summer, I suppose. I admit them if pressed. I like it when I'm in Yosemite and the air smells of heat and pine and dust. I like long evenings on the porch with wine and fresh tomatoes. I like swimming in the lake and drying off on the bank. I like....

Whoops. I ran out of things.

I hate heat -- my naturally sunny disposition turns sour as soon as the mercury soars anywhere above a brain-melting 72 degrees. Too much sunshine gives me a headache, which then turns into a migraine, from which I try to hide in the bedroom with too much light, in a house with no air conditioning. And I whine, and whine, and whine.

See? Summer makes me annoying.

Give me a cool, fall day, when the edges of evening are crisp like the top of an apple crumble. Or a stormy winter night when you worry if the roof can take the weight of the water. Or a drizzly spring morning when you wonder if it will ever dry out enough to mow the newly happy grass.

I know I'm an odd duck, but I love the problems of inclement weather. I like worrying about oil slicks on the highways, and whether my windshield wipers work. I like making sure my umbrella still opens (although I never want to carry it). I love it when the house is too cold when I get up to write, when I have to stumble around the house making coffee while wrapped in layers of wool, waiting for the heater to fire up and take off the chill enough to put my fingers on the laptop and start working.

Heat ennervates me. I have no brain. No creativity. Certainly no drive. On really hot days I lie in my front of my fans in a wet dress and turn my sound machine to the rainstorm option. Over the rain, there's a computerized plink-plink that I can just imagine is a stubborn drip hitting a bucket outside.

I spend summer writing storm scenes and waiting for fall.