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8:01pm December 25, 2011

➸ this ain't livin': Snow

Perhaps we do not have the flashy seasons, here, the weather extremes that people seem to think mean ‘seasons.’ Our seasons require patience and diligent attention, focus and respect. You cannot simply expect them to come to you. You need to pay attention, go outdoors sometimes, actuallylook at the world around you. You need to follow the flush of new growth on the edges of the trees as it spreads, slowly, creeping, until suddenly everything is an aggressive kelly green that fades over the coming weeks as it matures. You need to walk in the fog to know its different incarnations, the playful, light, wispy fog, the thick, heavy, murky fog, the fogs that are so wet with moisture your glasses steam up and the fogs that leave you chilled to the bone.

I’m originally from a redwood forest a little ways outside of La Honda, which means super-rainy.  I moved to Campbell, then did most of my growing up just over the San Jose border.  I have lived in the rural half of Clovis as well as Boulder Creek (more redwoods! more mold and banana slugs!), Santa Barbara, and Freedom.  And my parents live in the far northern part of California in the Siskiyou mountains (despite the name Seiad Valley), where it sometimes snows before here in Vermont and often just as heavy.  (And my dad’s from Wasco and has lived in a crapload of places himself.) Have had relatives in Wasco, Porterville, Bakersfield, and all of those other nearby places that made Bay Area folks sneer and go “not real Californians!”  

And have visited (among other places) San Diego, tons of places in the mountains (both Coast Range and Sierras), and, yes, even skied at Yosemite.  And have driven (or rather been driven) the entire length of the state (actually beyond that all the way up to Canada), and stayed in various places along the way at various times of year. 

Ou is completely right about there being a zillion climates in California and all of them with seasons.  It’s an effing huge state.