Dena Robles | More Than Words | Baby and Child Photographer

Days like these:

Make me yearn for Days like these:

Looks perfect, doesn’t it?  The thing is…chances are, someone in my party or nearby beach towel was complaining on that day of being too hot, or it being too bright or too sandy or too wet.  When it is winter we long for summer, when it is summer we are too hot and dream of the snow.  Are we ever satisfied?  Is it too hard to be uncomfortable once in awhile? If you have straight hair, you want curly hair, if you are short you wish to be tall, etc etc.

My farmer (yes, MY farmer) wrote a blog post last summer that really struck a chord with me.

“As you can imagine, weather is often on our minds.  Over the years I have become more in tune with it, but I am still not as keen as other seasoned farmers.  There are correlations, precursors and signs that folks who have worked in weather for a long time learn to notice.  I am not there yet. Ask me when I am 80.

The whole hail thing made me think about how unique it is that we are so connected to the weather, that we experience it everyday, the “good” weather and the “bad.”Farming is not the only trade that works through the weather, but if you add together all the trades that do, it is a minority percentage of the population. In some ways this is unfortunate.  The less you experience weather the more disconnected from the natural world you become.  Most of us live most of our lives under artificial lights, with indoor climate controls, sound proofing, and constant protection with roofs over our heads and inside comfortable vehicles.  How does this affect us?  How does it change our perception of the world?  Of course it is natural, and it makes sense for us to seek shelter when we are threatened by weather, but are we somehow too protected?  The only good weather becomes 75 and sunny, which is nice I admit, but isn’t rain important?  Do we become intolerant of being uncomfortable?  Could there be value in being uncomfortable?  What does being uncomfortable teach us, and is it actually uncomfortable, or have we simply become unaccustomed to it?

I think it may affect us on a deeper level than that.  There is a chance that our ability to protect ourselves from weather, in addition to other aspects of our culture, like being electronically connected, all the time, give us a false sense of control over the world and over our own lives.  There is a certain humility you experience when you harvest Chinese cabbage in a hail storm, for example, that reminds you that you do not control the world, but instead you are one part of the world, and that you are subject to it as much as you influence it.”