Waiting on the Rain

Though we are a month into the fall season and everything around me is reflecting the seasonal shift, I feel as though it hasn’t fully arrived. Our harvest on the homestead is complete and it was truly beautiful and bountiful. The colors of nature are changing as the leaves turn and huckleberries and madrone berries appear. Nights are proving cooler and the sun is taking a minute longer to break the horizon. But what I’m feeling, this hesitation and heaviness, is due in large part to the lack of rain. Though the chimney is cleaned, the firewood cut and stacked, and the kindling ready to go, a fire in the fireplace is the quintessential act; the true at home ceremony that fall has arrived. We can get cozy with soft lights, our Pendleton blankets, a good book and tea, but a fire in the fireplace happens only when the beloved rain comes.

Community members in both northern and southern Humboldt love talking weather, especially rain. The more intense the storm the more community members come down their respective mountains, towns, and nooks and crannies to commune in coffee shops, grocery stores or their tailgates. They tell stories of how the storm and rains impacted them; “How’d your road hold up, any trees down, you guys got power…?” It’s still one of my most favorite memories of living in Humboldt and still one of my most favorite things to do. Putting on my rain gear and riding shotgun next to my husband in his old F-250 with a chainsaw, shovel, and gas cans in back. Summer dust still remains inside and the windows steam from the condensation and heater as we bounce down our mountain road checking on culverts and ditches. When we hit town we grab a coffee and a cookie. Everyone is out. Bright eyed and eager to engage we connect on all things community with the rain and wind whipping around us. We run back to our trucks with provisions and perhaps a hot pizza, both soaked and stoked, as we are so grateful to be here; in the mountains with the community we so dearly love. Though we love all the seasons in Humboldt County, when the rainy one comes it’s officially fall.

I know most blogs in the Autumn season have to do with harvests, recipes, and giving thanks. This of course makes perfect sense. As the days grow short and the nights grow long, our lives shift and slow in ways that may or may not reflect the still busyness of our lives. Our outside world not only looks and feels different but so does our inside world. The long sunbright days give way to more shadows, more wind and more dark. Some of us take this time, ready or not, to pause and reflect on our lives; what we are grateful for and also what worries our souls. The time that continues to lead us into darker days literally has a tendency to take us deeper into ourselves. It can be uncomfortable, yes, but those that came before us learned that embracing the next two seasons by giving thanks helps keep our eternal light bright amongst the long dark nights. So whether or not the weather will allow your fire to burn, let us light our candles or fairy lights while we give thanks to the season and darkness ahead.