Hung up on weather...

"Did you catch the few minutes of sun this morning?" a friend in the Rochester grocery store said to me this morning. "I'm not sure...was that the sun?" I asked her. Once at the checkout counter I noticed people trying to get through more quickly than usual. Rochester is a a small town where people take time to stop and chat, as if that is what they come to town to do. It is refreshing that the pace of life slows down. Conversations in town inevitably start with the weather. Today the few rays of sun over Rochester were struggling to defy the threatening rain clouds.

On my five mile drive home I saw a neighbor walking her dog along the road. I stopped, rolled down the car window to say hello. She greeted me with "how are you doing with this all this rain?" I was momentarily comforted knowing that I'm not the only person around here focussed on weather.

Lately I have become more preoccupied than usual with the weather because it has been one of the wettest, coldest springs in several decades. I seem to be continually checking with meteorologists Mark Breen and Steve Moleski, on Vermont Public Radio. Their voices have become as recognizable as family members. Sometimes they report more than I really want to know about weather facts, and yet I stop what I am doing to listen to the"Eye on the Sky" report as if my life depended on it. I know I will survive but am not sure my mood will.

Vermonters are preoccupied with weather no matter what time of year it is. In the winter the conversations are all about how many degrees below zero the thermometer went last night, or how many inches of snow fell yesterday, or what the road conditions are like for driving over the mountain. Rochester is in the White River Valley between two mountain ranges so heading east or west requires a drive on a winding mountain road to 2500 feet.

In the summer, which always seems to fly by faster than any other season, I have heard Vermonters complain that it's too hot when the thermometer gets above 75 degrees. Air conditioning is a rare commodity in small town Vermont. Only very few businesses have AC like the grocery store. If you go to the Rochester Hardware store on Main Street on a warm day or Sandy's Bakery & Cafe, all the doors and windows are open. I feel the urge in the summer to store up the heat and sunshine so that I can draw upon the memory of it when winter gets here.

Vermont is famous for spectacular fall foliage, but spring is the season that never seems to arrive when it is supposed to or when we need it. At least that is how it is this year. Leaves appear seemingly overnight and the grass suddenly shoots right up and transforms the landscape from one day to the next from white to gray to brilliant dazzling shades of green. Spring bursts on the scene as if to announce that we have all survived another long winter.

By the time I get home from town the sun has gone under. I reach for my well worn fleece and settle on the couch with a book and a blanket. I can always hope that tomorrow will be better.