It’s rare to see Killington so clearly under the clouds.

It’s windy. It’s sleeting. It’s a little dark and a tad dreary. There is snow on Killington mountain, off in the distance. The trees are brown, the clouds gray, and I am … so grateful.

This summer’s weather, and this fall too, have been stunning. I’ve never seen it drier, sunnier, warmer, more beautiful. It was like a relentless onslaught of amazing, and I truly absorbed it with gratitude. I sat outside, I played outside, I worked outside. My brain and heart sung with gladness.

But the truth is, I could do with a little rain. A little bleak. A little hunkering down in a cozy sweater. This is more than a craving for fall and soups and gravies and pies, though (although, yea soups and gravies and pies). My mind needs to settle down. The weather plays me like a banjo. When it’s glorious, I am glorious. I’m on an epic high. I get things done, I smile and laugh and sing, I’m easier on myself and my family.

It would seem as if the flip side of that was gloom to go with gloom, grumpy me for grumpy weather. Sometimes that happens, but it’s not what I’m feeling this time. Instead, it’s as if the change in the weather was a release. That epic high is hard to sustain. I need a slowing, a graying, a calming. I need to come inside, literally and metaphorically, and regroup. I’m not attuned to being at that level so consistently. I need a break from the light.

I don’t know how you California people do it.

Ask me again in February, yeah, it’s true. If we go three weeks without sunshine I’ll be climbing the walls. When we come back around to Daylight Savings again, I will shout out my thanks. I’ll be ready for the return of summer, and I’d take another one of amazing warmth and sunshine (maybe minus the actual drought). That’s ok. Right now, I’ve got this gray, and I’m fine with it going grayer, as it surely will. I need a little darkness. Bring it on.