I have often observed that weather provides me with daily opportunities to cultivate serenity. It is the finest example of a short-term flavor of inconvenience and uncertainty. Weather is temporary, whatever kind of weather it may be. It is silly for me to grumble about it, silly for me to fret about it. No matter how much mental energy I dedicate to it, I cannot control it. Whatever it may be like today, it will be different in a few days' time.
"Take the long view," I tell myself. "Cultivate an eternal perspective." And yet my inner Serenitometer often looks something like this:
When I'm in the middle of a particular kind of weather I have trouble imagining anything different. My most memorable example of this shortsightedness comes from the fall of 1998, when I was packing up our Midwestern rental house to move to Scotland for two years.
I knew that the weather was going to be chilly and rainy in Scotland. I had seen the forecast: 55 and gray. But it was almost 40 degrees hotter in our part of the Midwest, and I couldn't get my mind around the contrast. I packed shorts and T-shirts in my luggage, and sent most of my warmer clothes by sea -- a decision I regretted deeply once we arrived. As I shivered in our Edinburgh rental house, I wrote a letter to US friends about my attack of meteorological solipsism. I'm still like that, almost a quarter-century later: my weather is THE weather, the only weather, world without end amen.
Today was the coolest day we've had in months. BRRRR, I said to myself, this does not seem right! BRRRR, I said to myself, it feels too cold to walk home.
This is objectively ridiculous; in April in these parts we all treat a 65-degree day as an invitation to race outside in short sleeves. You'll be relieved to hear that I did not suffer any frostbite while walking home.
But it reminds me of the way that I always perceive changes in context: my reaction to the things that come my way tomorrow will be shaped by the things that came my way last week and last month. It reminds me to practice being adaptable. Maybe one of these days the weather will even teach me to be more serene. Maybe.
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