I just heard that the weather was going to be "bad" tomorrow. Who said so? I really think we should get away from calling weather bad when it's severe, or not to our convenience, don't you? Of course if it's a tornado, or if it damages homes or people, that's another thing. But is it bad when It is just windy or snowing, or rainy or whatever? Some of my most intensely enjoyable times are when there is "bad" weather.

Others can have their "nice summer day for a picnic" or something as "good" weather, and I agree, but weather gets better than that for me. Some of these brutal humid hot days of Virginia summers where you had to cease all activity were not my idea of perfection, I can say that.

Picture with me a strangely gusty and dark afternoon, whatever the season, when you can hear and feel the wind blowing right through you. Just look at the low charcoal and silver clouds moving like layers at different speeds overhead, and the trees whipping and swooshing erratically. Your senses are on edge, feeling like there is something special going on --- and there is. Somehow images of Hardy's heath, or some Dracula movie, or some memory of wild dreams flash in your mind, and it is just exhilarating! Takes my breath away.

Give me a winter morning after a fresh snow, where the snow covers absolutely everything in sight, down to the twigs on the trees. It is so cold that the snow squeaks as you step on it. The snow has long since stopped falling, and you keep looking to see if anything will move, but it doesn't. Just everything is crystalline and spotless. It is so still that you think you could hear a snowflake fall. Just standing there at that moment, breathing it in, feeling like you are a part of it, just is a spiritual high beyond words.

It is odd how we people run from rain showers like it was acid falling or something. Of course we all have ingrained in us the civilized shell that wants to keep dry our precious clothing, purses and wallets, hair etc, etc. I am that way too when you have to look presentable or keep healthy. But I so often find myself in a different camp. I try to back up a little and enjoy the rain.

Two extremes of rain especially thrill me. One is when rain is so gentle and fine you can hardly see it. It's stronger than a mist, since it clearly is directional - the drops are intent on getting to the ground like thousands of little spiders descending on threads. That sprizzy rain, particularly when it is warm, just is one of those things in nature that makes me feel pleasure, how else can I explain it?

The opposite also grabs my attention. Think of a roaring, driving rain coming down in pounding, relentless blinding fashion, obscuring everything around you. If you are in the car, you pull over, knowing it is hopeless to proceed. If you are on a screened porch, you scoot back as far as you can, watching the torrents, knowing it can't last much longer, wondering how it kept it up this long. The power for a fleeting second reminds you of standing very close to the edge of Niagara river, just before the falls, peering into the strangely transparent green steel deep water moving at overpowering speed over the edge. I can almost recreate the feeling from memory. But although Everly Brothers tried to convince me otherwise years ago, you have to be there, you can't bring it totally back in a dream. All of these natural highs I'm describing here are special. The feeling of being overpowered by the beauty or the power is a key to it. I know I should be able to tie religion into this some way, but it is beyond my understanding to do that.