The last truly warm day I experienced was in late October, just before Halloween when Bex visited. I remember I got coffee and went for a walk through this forest path near the place I was living at the time. The leaves were red and orange and yellow and I could see pollen in the sunlight. I only needed to wear a T-shirt and my black denim jacket, which is what I wore every single day in the Bay Area. I was already hopelessly nocturnal by then, but I forced myself to be in the sun that day because I knew that soon we were all headed towards the great darkness. What I did not know was that it really was the last day. And with the exception of a few days scattered around in the last month, it has essentially been winter since then. I have watched in bewilderment as a sunny almost-warm day in Berlin will sometimes also include rain and snow for 20-minute intervals. It was kind of cute at first. Now I’m going insane. This has got to end.
I left the East Coast for Texas in 2011, which was twelve years ago. To be sure, there is winter in Austin, but it’s nothing like it is where I’m from. After that I went to California, where I would spend the next decade of my life. During that time I spent a winter in Portland and a winter in Berlin. But other than that, I haven’t had to deal with a winter that takes up literally half a year since I was in college.
Listen: I used to think of winter as a time to read books and watch movies and shit like that, and was a Necessary Season to later truly appreciate spring. After all, there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. I thought that people who hated winter were big babies. As it turns out, I’m a big baby too.
They tell me it has rained all winter in California, and has flooded the streets in the Bay Area. Even though it’s almost May, I saw that it’s still in the low/mid-50s in Oakland. So it’s not as though I’d be safe in warm if I were in California either. Still, I have this deep and abiding love for California and the glorious year-round sun you can get there, and I miss it so bad my insides hurt. That’s what you’re paying for when you live there, by the way: to never have to experience winter. It’s like a massive sunshine tax. I finally get it.
I remember watching some David Lynch documentary a while back, and he said that when he first came to LA in the 70s to finish making ERADERHEAD, he stood in the street with his eyes closed and his head pointed up towards the sky for a long time just taking in the warmth of the California sun, as he’d never experienced the sun like that before. It sounds corny to say so, but if you’ve never been there, it’s a real thing. After the long dark winter of Berlin, I realize with sadness that I took that California sun for granted.
Slowly the sunset has been pushed back later and later into the evening. In the dead of winter, the sun absolutely set at 4 pm, and didn’t rise again until 8 am. It was miserable. Now it rises at 6 am and sets around 8:15 pm. By June, the sun won’t set till 9:30 pm, which is an hour more than California gets. I don’t even really like the sun, but for god’s sake, we desperately need it here. It’s like I said before: I’m going insane.
Tomorrow I will write about a few other reasons I’m going insane. One of the reasons is that I feel like I need to drive a car someplace. I need hills or mountains, is the thing. I don’t think it’s healthy to go too long without either of them. All I can say for sure is that their absence from my life has wounded me.
THUS CONCLUDES MY BORING POST ABOUT WEATHER AND MY NEWFOUND SENTIMENTALITY FOR THE SUN
OK: time to watch an EROTIC THRILLER on the Criterion Channel. That’s one of their themes this month. It has mostly been hit or miss. The last two movies have been kinda rough. Hopefully tonight I get lucky, cuz that’s the ONLY way I’m gonna get lucky tonight. Yeeaaaaahhhh baby!!!
