Day 4. Can we please stop the rain?!

Remember when talking about the weather meant you had nothing else to say?

A little conversational filler while waiting for the elevator.

Nobody needed a charging station, an evacuation route, or a working knowledge of coastal flood zones.

I would like that weather back.

The East Coast is dealing with a nor’easter, complete with pounding rain, strong winds, and coastal flooding.

Apparently, autumn felt that falling leaves and an overpriced pumpkin latte weren’t dramatic enough.

At a certain age, you develop very modest expectations for a pleasant weekend. Something good to eat. A walk. Perhaps a football game that doesn’t require emotional recovery. You do not expect to spend it wondering whether the very expensive mature tree you just planted is about to join you in the living room.

And yet, here we are. Checking the forecast. Checking it again, as though refreshing the app might open negotiations.

Then I think about Pacific Palisades, where the January 2025 fire destroyed thousands of structures, and the conversation becomes much harder than complaints about a washed-out weekend. People lost homes, familiar streets, and the ordinary places that held their lives together.

That’s what stays with me. The ordinary things.

The drawer full of photographs you keep meaning to organize. Your mother’s handwriting on a recipe card. The chair nobody else finds comfortable. We spend years collecting the evidence of a life, usually while complaining that we have too much stuff. Then we watch someone leave home with whatever they can carry, and suddenly stuff seems like a terribly inadequate word.

There is something deeply unsettling about realizing that home, the place you go to feel safe, can itself be in danger.

One coast watching the water rise. Memories of another watching the hills burn. Let’s not forget the hurricanes I have experienced in Florida.

I still want to complain about the rain. I reserve that right. I have hair that responds to humidity as though it has been personally threatened, and a dog who seems to believe I control precipitation.

But I’m trying to remember the difference between an inconvenience and a catastrophe. A canceled lunch is disappointing. Having a home in which to be disappointed is a privilege.

So I’ll charge the phone, find the flashlight and try to stop refreshing the weather app every six minutes.

What I would really love is a forecast so unremarkable that I forget it immediately.

At this stage of life, that sounds positively luxurious.