Within the first few weeks of moving to this city, I recall waiting for a bus downtown in the dark hard rain. I watched the busy intersection in front me, congested with damp commuters trying to get home, and incredulously, a commuter biking up the steep hill. Cold, wet, and dispirited from the lack of sun, I groaned to myself: what the hell is this city and why did I move here?
Lamenting the interminable gloom and rain, as I quickly learned, is a losing game, as well as a conspicuous way to announce myself as “NOT FROM HERE”. If newcomers, like me, didn’t love or learn to tolerate the weather—well, this is an inescapable reality of the Pacific Northwest, so deal with it, or leave.
This is now my fifth winter here, and my first one without respite from holiday travel. Even after all these years here, I still don’t love this rainy weather, and maybe I never will. I grew up accustomed to Michigan winters, brimming with negative windchills and prodigious amounts of snow. The temperature was much colder, sure, but we at least had some damn sunshine.
Grumblings aside, my lack of affection for this incessant rain is no deterrent from my appreciation of living in this lush region. I’m not from here, but I’m happy to be here.