Nostalgia

Yeah, it’s been a dry winter and I’ve been worried about forest fires, beings as how I live in the forest!! But a few days ago the rain started. I think it’s been wetter the last few days than all of winter. And our freshly chip sealed driveway is taking a beating by the constant downpour.

And yet….

I was coming up Beaver Hill around 5:30 AM and there was the clouds kissing the tree tops, and getting mighty slobbery at it too. A feeling comes over me. Sometimes I feel it in the heat of summer.

I am taken back I don’t know how many years, probably not too long after we moved to Oregon from Missouri. These states are so different from each other. I’m sure it rained in Missouri, but in the summer fields turn into dirt. Here in Oregon, it usually rains well into June, and though we might have a warm summer, rarely does it top 90, let alone 100. Our fields turn into, well. less green. The grass will turn a lovely golden color if left to grow long. The best descriptor of Oregon summers is pleasant.

Oops. I think that’s supposed to be a secret….

Many people don’t care how lovely it is here in the summer, because they know most of the year it is, ahem, damp. Except this year. I was off work for 3 weeks the beginning of April and it was acting like August. We made the appointment to get our driveway chip sealed. Well, that’s another blog, I think.

I have this memory, so clear. Being in some sort of truck, wet to the skin, feeling the heat coming up from the floor boards. It felt so heavenly. Chime in sisters, if you remember similar. Seems like it could have been a return from skiing, but I believe it had more to do with target shooting on Mt. Hood in a clear cut. Maybe it’s the culmination of hundreds of rainy day hikes.

And when I see those clouds come down to touch the earth the nostalgia is so visceral.  It’s like a peek into another world. It’s the past thrust into my lap. I am overtaken. In the best way.

So, rain on!