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Overcast, Cloudy, Gloomy, Grey, Dull, and Dreary. Take your pick; Synonymous each of the other, apt too for a daily forecast.
Terms you’d hear the weatherman also use perhaps to talk about a day sans sunshine and blue skies across the country at this time of year.
Many a mind perchance carrying this wishful deliberation: ‘Oh to be tucked snug in bed, with one’s favourite paperback or movie, over a mug of hot chocolate’...
Me? I introspect.
My mind takes a quick traverse to years gone by and back.
Change? There hasn’t been much of. Yes, to be sheltered secure and warm is temptation foremost, but under the covers is a far cry for me. Always has been.
To me, eight is just the needed hours, ( as nature would have it), as sufficient for rest and relaxation; beyond which I would think squandered and misused.
An unexplained overpowering, stifling restlessness usually would creep in whenever I found myself confined within for a prolonged period of time.
To be standing under an open sky, a stroll down a street, a lane even, is, by far, a treat I’ve known myself to take great pleasure in and still know to be utterly appreciative of.
For as far back as I can retrace, as a child I see myself mostly outdoors with Dad, if my sisters busied themselves with time to try new recipes or pick tips to sew, from Mother, outside the four walls was my place; come rain or shine, engrossing myself in discoveries of sorts that the outdoors had such a plethora of was what I enjoyed best.
As a young adult, even the city streets, would beckon me though overcrowded and polluted, to be out there rather than being another onlooker from behind the precincts of grilled windows.
In college, when one was but a bundle of vivaciousness - vividly do I recall a day when a holiday was declared. A dreadful rainy day it turned out to be. What a wet blanket of a day! In anticipation to ‘spend’ the holiday well, I checked with friends on their plans. Almost every one of them had them set – to stay indoors. ‘Just the right day to snuggle in and laze!’ was what I got.
That didn’t stand as a thwart to my impulse so, geared with umbrella and a good pair of walking shoes as companions, I stepped out. I didn’t have a destination, only time, fresh air, a sky pouring down rain, puddles, and the road beneath my feet. A step at a time I walked on and on at my own pace, for as far as my heart and feet carried me, inhaling the freshness of sodden soil soaking in the rain, the plants and trees looked complete, washed sprightly clean with sparkling jewelled drops glistening on them , there was a clean crispness in every breath of air. The incessant patter of raindrops drumming on my umbrella, the swooshing splash of puddles big and small created around me liveliness in everyone and everything that only another spanking new day as that could have given me. I couldn’t have asked for more.
Much as I would have liked it to, time didn’t stand still, and I had to get back, possibly a tad exhausted but saturated with the exuberance of having spent this entire day experiencing in complete revelry the joy of the outdoors, bars withholding.