Portland resides in a temperate rainforest zone. All winter long, it’s been raining. It gets cold for three, maybe four months out of the year, rarely dropping below freezing. Moss creeps on the sidewalk and the sides of red brick apartment buildings, and ferns spring from the crotches of the big trees overhanging the sidewalks. The drizzle feeds everything decaying.
We don’t see the sun except maybe once every two to three weeks if we’re lucky, and the streets remain slick and lit up with neon signs, streetlights, people in their cars splashing on towards their destination here in Drowntown. The days are shorter, and so it’s like a constant twilight that, every once in a while, gives way to a mildewy, sunny day in the 40s or low 50s.
A lot of folks here need full spectrum lamps and Vitamin D to get through the long winter months. Without the snow storms so common to Minnesota, it just stays damp and dismal and cold.
The sun came out these last two weeks, and it hit the 80s over the weekend.
Last night, it started raining again. The mulch and grass outside, grown and healthy over the weekend, smelled sweet, and nothing like mold. Soft drops hit the sidewalk, hit cars, stirred the warm dirt.
At sunset, the sun came out for a moment, golden and bright over the West Hills.
This morning, everything is blooming.