Human beings are strange. I know this because I love the fog (so does Tony Bennett). This is odd, because I spent most of my life bemoaning its presence.
Growing up in the Bay Area as a small child, the fog meant doomsday. Growing up in the Bay Area, this meant you were doomed a lot of the time. It meant the sun may or may not show itself before it was time for it to go down. It meant all the adults around you were going to complain about how it was foggy (again). It meant that having a birthday in July was not going to guarantee you jubilant celebration outdoors with your friends. Fog meant a precursor to inside days and inside voices.
So it’s strange that now I love the fog, precisely because it reminds me of living in the Bay Area. See what I mean?
We’ve had a lot of foggy days around intown Atlanta over the past few weeks. And I can’t even pinpoint why it strikes me, or what memory is triggered. I’ve stood out on my balcony some recent mornings, half-dressed and half-freezing in my pajamas, looking at the fog and trying to figure it out. I just get a sense that something I forgot is letting me know it’s still around, ready and waiting whenever I need it, no matter when that may be.
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i grew up in manhattan, where there is plenty of weather to go around. i often craved the light, which is one of the three reasons i ended up moving to LA. now that i’ve lived in relentless sunshine for many years, i miss NYC and its comparatively volatile climate. i’m excited when rain visits southern california, i adore the overcast chill, the rare fog. fog is mysterious, even glamorous. as a child in new york city, it bathed me in the assurance that nothing was certain. in LA — even living in the grimy middle of the only real part of los angeles that resembles a “city” — i’m lulled into the false security of all being well. i need weather that tells the truth.
“weather that tells the truth”! I love that! Yeah, there’s something textured in having weather that reflects the internal — in the way that I think sunshine pushes everything to the external.