Jun 17th, 2022 Friday Sunny
At the beginning of June, my husband and I took a trip to San Diego. Given its latitude and proximity to Mexico, a land known for a variety of spices and chili peppers, I expected to be welcomed by a “hot city”.
To a certain extent, San Diego is a hot city, but not necessarily with high temperature (it was in a very comfortable temperature between 60s and 70s when I visited). Rather, it was the bountiful sunshine.
I have the habit of checking weather forecast the night before to decide my clothes for the next day. During my stay in San Diego, the UV index for every single day was “extremely high”. Interestingly, when I woke up in the morning, I looked through the window – a fog-like overcast outside – and thought to myself, “I guess it won’t be as sunny as the forecast said”, only to be proven wrong around 11am, when all of the mist dissipated to make way for the brilliant and also brutal sunshine (I got sunburned despite having put on layers of sunscreen, and the partition in my hair where the little bit of scalp was unprotected became scorched after the first day out in Balboa park).
And this has been repeating. Every day during our entire trip. If the weather forecast I am seeing now is to be trusted, it would continue like this for any foreseeable future. It is a city of eternal sunshine (and in a sense, eternal spring as well). Not because the sun never sets like in some arctic regions during summer, but because it is predictably sunny EVERY DAY.
Do I like that? Do you?
Well, I grew up in a climate with four distinct seasons, and each season has different types of weather days. I learned to associate the gentle shower and baby leaves on willow trees with spring, thunderstorms and steamy “sauna days” with summer, cool breeze and changing colors with fall, and bleak winds and snow with winter. Not to mention the hundreds of food that signal the come and go of seasons (watermelons in summer, for example ?). If the weather is the same everyday and all seasons look/feel so similar, wouldn’t I be missing all the rich experiences that nature offers?
In general, modern humans living in urban centers are no longer in touch with nature the way that our ancestors used to. On one hand, the advancement of technology has greatly sheltered us from being subject to the power of nature (with some exceptions – like the recent severe thunderstorms), which we could all be thankful for. On the other hand, though, being out of touch with all the mood swings of nature makes each day feel like another, and life in an industrialized world could feel particularly repetitive.
I enjoy the anticipation of different weathers, even though that could mean some inconvenience in my commute and how I pack my suitcase. I cherish the rainy days, the snowy days, the cloudy days, and even the stormy days (as long as it does not knock my power out, for too long 😛 ), as much as the sunny days.
I think I appreciate the sunny days MORE when there are many non-sunny days, because that makes the sunshine extra special and worth celebrating.
A land of eternal sunshine sounds romantic, but maybe also a little tiring for me. The ups and downs of the weather goddess make life more exciting, and the changing seasons make each cycle of the sun more memorable and unique.
Fascinating, don’t you think?