The Rainy Season

I find myself feeling the need to apologize for my favorite season being the rainy one because of its stark unpopularity among the masses. Nonetheless, my feelings are undaunted and will continue so until I have a change of heart. I will concede, however, that I truly love the summer for its relaxed, placid and warm days. The winter and fall seasons, on the other hand, have so much more to offer the senses and body that my decision between summer and winter is practically made for me.

One of my favorite feelings is going from a warm and cozy fire and incandescent lit living room to the fresh chilled and thirty-nine degree air of a late November morning. With my blue sweat pants, my gray sweatshirt, a beanie and a cup of coffee, I greet the dewy morning with a long and relaxed deep breath, and then let the moist, amazing, clean Oregon air ease out of my chest.

As amazing as the crisp morning air is, it's only a small part of the whole experience. The staccato splashes of the water as my shoes hit the puddles on the gray stained deck; the slight tension of having to take ever more precise steps as so not to slip on the water-slicked wood; the sight of the backlit, overcast clouds and the dense fog giving everything a soft and inviting, yet eerie blue tint; the sound of the rain hitting the first set of leaves on the ever encroaching mighty oaks, then dripping down through the canopy, soaking the moss covered trunks and branches, finally hitting the shrubs and saturated ground below giving the entire scene a marvelously composed, orchestral soundtrack.

I have lived in Oregon my entire life, so I know no other environment better. It's said that smell is the sense most closely tied to memory. When I smell freshly fallen rain, the memories come cascading right back to me, as though every single one of them was just last week. I remember when I was about ten years old my best friend and I were sitting on his newly white carpeted floors