I wrote this last year when I was living in Arizona. As I review this, it’s a rainy, August day in Ohio. Things change quickly!
One of the great things about moving to a new area is seeing the weather through new eyes. Weather is something we all like to complain about.
When I lived in Indiana, I was always looking forward to the next season. Is it too hot? Don’t complain too much because in six months it will be too cold? Is it too wet? Watch out! A drought could be just around the corner. Do you think the weather is perfect? Uh oh! next week it will be totally different. Sorry about that, buddy!
Now that I live in Arizona, I am discovering a new world of weather. I never heard of a haboob until this summer. And what do you mean I shouldn’t bother washing the car? Monsoons? There are monsoons in the Desert Southwest? Do you mean a road can be bone dry one minute and under three feet of water the next? This is so cool!
I have shared my excitement with some of the veterans. They look on me with pity. They’ve been through this a dozen times. They look upon me with the same jaded look I gave when a Floridian gushed over an Indiana winter storm warning, or when a college friend from Beirut, Lebanon panicked over a tornado warning. Seriously? You’ve been through a war and a tornado has you freaked out?
It makes me realize how quickly the extraordinary becomes the mundane. It doesn’t take very long to gloss over details that others may find amazing.
