In Defense of the Weather

I'm going to talk about the weather, and not because I have nothing else to say. The topic is generally considered ultimately dull, a last resort to be trotted out sometime after "How 'bout them Red Sox?" One imagines old men sitting on dusty porches in Texas, commenting for the 63rd consecutive day that they seem to be in the midst of a dry spell. Once, on a tour bus in France, I sat next to a very old Japanese man whose English was entirely limited to the discussion of pleasant weather. Periodically he pointed to the sky and said, earnestly, "It's fine." He was a nice man, but I have to admit it was an extremely boring conversation.

Weather gets a bad rap for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it's difficult to say anything novel on the subject, and it tends to run itself out pretty quickly. You hear about people who really like to watch the Weather Channel, but I bet these people are not actually into weather so much as natural disaster; note the tornado and flood videos being advertised for $19.99 (plus shipping and handling), and the comparative dearth of mail-order movies about, say, humidity.

Although I probably wouldn't want to watch a video about it, day-to-day weather is just the sort of thing I like. What can I say? Cold and bright, dark and drizzly, thunder and lightning, hot sun and still air--the heavens can open up and give me anything they've got. Weather is wonderfully evocative, like an old song or a familiar smell. Hot, breezy sunshine transports me to my grandparents' house in southern California, and each clear, crackling autumn day calls up every back-to-school shopping trip I've ever taken.

Weather is like the background music to life. You can just ignore it if you want, but you can also let it create, match or contrast with your mood, as filmmakers and Romantic poets have been quick to discover (picture Gene Kelly singing in the rain, and emotional British men wandering the stormy countryside). Weather is mood music that everybody hears, and this commonality is both its strength and its downfall. As a topic that is available to everyone, we tend to bring it up when there is absolutely no other common ground. On the other hand, when we're all experiencing the same gorgeous fall day, we're all starting from the same place. There is something gratifying in the communal appreciation of a great day, the collective distaste for a nasty one and the shared experience of the singular atmosphere created by a light, warm rain.

It's probably safe to say that most of us didn't come to Harvard for the Massachusetts weather, but I grew up on it, and I'm prepared to come to its defense. The best weather around is the kind that's on its way out, the kind you know you're going to miss. The perfect fall day, smelling like leaves and demanding a sweater, never fails to do it for me, and I'll take the first warm breezy days of spring over a thousand days of southern California sunshine. Actually, I don't want a thousand days of any weather, which is what's particularly great about fall and spring. There are places where it's summer all the time, and places where it's winter all the time, but there's nowhere in the whole world where fall or spring is there to stay.

This is not to say that I don't spend many a dark cold Massachusetts day longing for summer in southern California, spring break in Florida, and intersessions in Cancun. I am perfectly willing to believe that people are genuinely happier and more relaxed in warm, sunny climates. But then I think of the first days after spring break, and it's finally nice outside, and everyone is so happy. What's more, as a friend remarked to me last spring, "everyone is so hot," with their souvenir tans and the sunshine on their short-sleeved arms. Would we appreciate these days so much if we had them all year round? It seems unlikely that a sunny, 80-degree day inspires quite the same euphoria at the University of Florida.

So we can all just stop with the Stanford envy, and try to appreciate the unusual loveliness of the nothing-if-not-variable New England weather. Maybe I'm being ridiculously optimistic, but how can I help it? It's such a nice, warm, fragrant fall day.

Jody H. Peltason '01 is a history and literature concentrator in Eliot House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays.