I think I figured out why this advent of summer is speaking to me...it dates back about 23 years. When my folks decided to move from NC to FL, Dad came down first to start work and find a house to rent. I remember him talking about the summer schedule of the rain, how every afternoon around 3 or so, the sky would darken, dump water, and then go back to normal. Being an impressionable Yankee and a know-it-all junior in high school at the time, I was like, "yeah, right." Didn't seem possible, he must be exaggerating. Sure, Pop, we'll see...
Moving day came. Cyril and Meara flew down to Tampa (because Meara was not quite 3 and Cyril's legs were already pretty long, so Dad sympathized how they'd feel about the long drive and cooked up that deal). Mom, Dad, and I packed and drove. Unfolded ourselves from the car that afternoon at my Uncle Tom and Aunt Denyse's house, where we were staying the night before heading over to Largo to set up our new temporary digs.
We're hanging out on the back porch at one point and I hear this noise. Can't understand what it is, because it's still pretty sunny out. Dad or Tom suggests we go out front to check it out. We all go out to the driveway, look up the street and watch the rain heading our way, literally coming down the street toward us. I was dumbstruck. Up north, the rain may fall in every conceivable direction, I mean, we saw some serious storms on Above All (in Warren, CT), but it usually came from straight overhead. This was literally a wall of water heading in our direction. We watched until it hit, then hightailed it back inside, but I remember grinning at the wildness of the weather.
The lack of seasons really gets me down, but there's something about this time of year, when it's not too hot yet and everything's blooming...we may be close to summer, but for me, it's a kind of spring.
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