You Can't Plan for Picnics

So.  It rains here.  A lot.

Not that I didn't know what I was getting into.  At least weatherwise.  While still in the midwest that last week before coming here, I'd look at the 5 day Dublin forecasts and laugh - frowny rainclouds straight through, with temperatures I'm used to only in the thick of autumn or beginnings of spring.  I left 100 degree days for sweater weather - and in my book that's a win.  But.  It rains here.  A lot.  You can't plan for picnics.  It's plain and simple fact that it's just going to rain at some point during the day, if not for the whole day.  Not that I ever plan picnics, but knowing that I now don't have the option does take something away.  The idea of planning for a picnic is one of those luxuriously lazy rights of summer -- for me, it's like thinking about buying a sundress.  The idea of it can be refreshing, thinking about what summery color I would choose, what length for the hemline, the wind kicking up the bottoms of the dress as I eat watermelon or drink fresh, cold lemonade...


But then, I've never bought a sundress in my life.

Because inevitably: the summery color would fade, I'd probably regret whatever length of a hemline I chose, I'd be forever paranoid of the wind blowing my dress up just enough for people to see my underwear, and to further dash that image - that watermelon would get all over me and the fresh lemonade would leave seeds in my teeth.  Also, it's just not my style.

Perhaps this is all symbolic.  Surely, my first post about having relocated to an entirely different country, continent even, cannot be about the bloody weather.  

But I've felt a bit detached from the world since my arrival here.  Knowing what the weather's like in Ann Arbor or Chicago or New York or Seoul brings me closer to people. To myself maybe, I don't know. I can tell you that while it is 55 and rainy in Dublin and I sit here, writing, under blankets, looking out windows, my good friends in Ann Arbor are in sunny 82 degree weather, hopefully on their way to Kilwin's for an ice cream cone or later on to Grizzly Peak for a cold one, my good friends in Chicago are in sunny 86 degree weather, hopefully enjoying the lakeshore and later on, regretting the terrificly delicious and massive deep dish they had for dinner, my good friends in New York are in sunny 89 degree weather, hopefully picnicking in Central Park and later on, catching a double-header at Film Forum or the Sunshine and my friends in Seoul are in sunny 82 degree weather, hopefully walking through some thousand-year-old temple and later on, eating squid chips and drinking chilsung cider at the dvd bang down their street. 

This is all horribly nostalgic.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I've bypassed a season of my life.  Summer.  It doesn't exist where I am right now.  I can't be carefree anymore -- I must pack a layer for the night-time cold.  It's not dark til nearly midnight here.  Too much time to think and wallow.

Maybe I can live out the rest of my days under these blankets, do my best imitation of Proust, pontificate from my bed, espouse witty and seemingly wise sentiments of days past, pretending to know this new world while not really being in it.

As with the summery sundress color, this detachment too, shall fade. I hope. There's lot of guinness to go around, mountains too, pubs four times older than the country I grew up in.  Mountains!  Sea!

Now, to get up.