Paul Tevis (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ptevis) wrote,@ 2004-07-01 10:02:00 |
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it must be july
I live in Santa Barbara (I can hear your pity welling up already), and as such I am grateful that June is over. I find this odd, because growing up in Iowa, I always looked forward to June. June symbolized all that was good about the world: the end of the school year, the beginning of beautiful weather, my birthday, and so on and so forth. But now I dread June. Why? Because of the Gloom.
Santa Barbara has what is commonly referred to as a Mediterranean climate, which is a fancy way of saying that it's gorgeous all the damn time. This is quite true, and as a result of the extremely subtle seasonal variations here, I've lost the ability to tell what month it is. It's sunny and 75 F? Could be September, could be January. Two months, however, do have distinctive weather patterns associated with them. One is February: That's when it rains. The other used to be my favorite month. Now, however, due to atmospheric conditions I do not fully comprehend, during the sixth month of year the skies here are continually gray and dreary. It's warm but dark, it's humid but it doesn't rain, and for a few brief weeks our Endless Summer is interrupted. They call it the June Gloom.
The Gloom is insidious. You'd think that with the 300+ sunny days per year that we get in Santa Barbara, people would be able to cope. You'd be wrong, because as soon as the Gloom rolls in, everyone gets low-grade Seasonal Affective Disorder. I suppose that's the downside of being a sun-worshiper: When your god forsakes you, you are cast into spiritual darkness. Like Dante descending in the great pit of Hell, we are deeply afraid that we will never see the light of day again.
This year we were fortunate, as the Gloom held off until the second week of June before descending on our peaceful beach-front community. For the rest of the month, however, we saw neither hide nor hair of the blessed orb, and we were left to huddle together for metaphorical warmth. I always try to spend June in other, more pleasant places, like Seattle, but this year I had only my trip to Columbus to save me from the continually overcast skies and emotional funk they precipitate.
So of course, when I rolled out of bed this morning, there was not a cloud in the sky.
I live in Santa Barbara (I can hear your pity welling up already), and as such I am grateful that June is over. I find this odd, because growing up in Iowa, I always looked forward to June. June symbolized all that was good about the world: the end of the school year, the beginning of beautiful weather, my birthday, and so on and so forth. But now I dread June. Why? Because of the Gloom.
Santa Barbara has what is commonly referred to as a Mediterranean climate, which is a fancy way of saying that it's gorgeous all the damn time. This is quite true, and as a result of the extremely subtle seasonal variations here, I've lost the ability to tell what month it is. It's sunny and 75 F? Could be September, could be January. Two months, however, do have distinctive weather patterns associated with them. One is February: That's when it rains. The other used to be my favorite month. Now, however, due to atmospheric conditions I do not fully comprehend, during the sixth month of year the skies here are continually gray and dreary. It's warm but dark, it's humid but it doesn't rain, and for a few brief weeks our Endless Summer is interrupted. They call it the June Gloom.
The Gloom is insidious. You'd think that with the 300+ sunny days per year that we get in Santa Barbara, people would be able to cope. You'd be wrong, because as soon as the Gloom rolls in, everyone gets low-grade Seasonal Affective Disorder. I suppose that's the downside of being a sun-worshiper: When your god forsakes you, you are cast into spiritual darkness. Like Dante descending in the great pit of Hell, we are deeply afraid that we will never see the light of day again.
This year we were fortunate, as the Gloom held off until the second week of June before descending on our peaceful beach-front community. For the rest of the month, however, we saw neither hide nor hair of the blessed orb, and we were left to huddle together for metaphorical warmth. I always try to spend June in other, more pleasant places, like Seattle, but this year I had only my trip to Columbus to save me from the continually overcast skies and emotional funk they precipitate.
So of course, when I rolled out of bed this morning, there was not a cloud in the sky.
