Into the June Gloom


 
 
 

When I first moved to California, about twenty-five years ago, I always marveled at how sunny it is here. Living in Southern California was a dream come true for a sun-loving Canadian like me. I moved here in April, when the grey slushy snow had just about disappeared from the road sides in my home town. Just a week later, I would walk down a warm sunny street in my flip-flops and t-shirt to do the laundry near my little garden apartment in North Hollywood, smiling like a crazy person at the idea of having this kind of weather at this time of year.

I can remember my first winter in Southern California. I was sitting in the patio of a neighborhood Mexican Cantina-style bar having a margarita and watching the news on the television about the latest snowstorm to hit the east coast. I felt somewhat disoriented to be sitting in jeans and a t-shirt on a sunny seventy degree day while the rest of the country dug itself out of yet another “unseasonably early nor-esterner” back home. That was the year I had my first winter barbeque, truly a Southern California tradition if there ever was one. Little did I know; twenty-five years later I would be building my own website about the world of barbeques.

Back where I come from, the joke is to not complain about the weather, it will change in the next ten minutes anyways. It tended to be pretty true to form, on the whole. But here, I got used to the fact that you can have pretty much the same sunny blue skies and warm temperatures for months on end. The first few years I lived here you could count on it raining from around November or December until the following March or April. That was it – no more rain until the end of the year. The days would blend together, one after the other in endless way-too-comfortable-to-be-true succession.

I recall driving up from Long Beach, where I now lived, to the furthest end of the valley to visit my friend Todd. I drove a Miata, that seldom had the top up as the weather was almost always perfect. That amazing drive; was half the reason for the visit every month or so. I would take Mulholland Drive up past Malibu and breathe in the oak-scented air the whole way up. We would hang around in his woodshop for the weekend, playing with his power tools. I remember how I loved to watch the band saw as he designed the most amazing furniture. I still love that tool, it is no wonder I ended up building a website called BandSaw Tool World. Art comes in all forms, and that man’s tables were definitely a work of art. I have one here at home, and I think I will always treasure it.

But those long lazy days are gone, and I find that the last few years have given me fewer of those sun-filled madcap adventures. Sure- I still find a reason to take off on a road trip or three. I might camp on the beach of a Northern Oregon coast listening to the bark of seals at sunrise or bunker down in a Minnesota forest surrounded by fireflies just because I can. I have even been known to take the occasional foray into yet another little business, like my current one developing niche market websites. It is interesting to do the research and find out facts about some new aspect of life I had never even considered. Something as prosaic as a garden wall can yield a treasure trove of information. I learned how high you can build a retaining wall for a sloped yard before you need an engineer to ensure it doesn’t collapse (three feet in most cities) and that you can buy these cool forms that you fill with cement you have colored yourself. Your own designer bricks for your garden retaining wall. And I got to write about it!

So I guess it doesn’t really matter if it is May Gray or June Gloom after all. I will always find a way to enjoy the day, the week and the month. No matter where I am – it is a better day by far when I get to learn and write!



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