I spend a lot of time looking out the window. My view is a verdant lawn. Rabbits and a great variety of birds forage at its edges, a half-acre surrounded at the south end by towering Douglas fir, and at the north, a massive willow tree as graceful as any dancer. It never stops raining. The sound of the rain is my evening lullaby.
I am in the northwest—Longview, Washington to be exact, home to the Longview Fibre Company, which operates a pulp and paper mill as well as 16 container and bag plants in 11 states. Originally known as Monticello, the city has grown up with the mill. On any day you can see plumes of smoke rising above the Columbia River, a rolling swath of blue that shapes the outer edge of the city. Logging trucks own the roads. People burn wood in fireplaces, something we’ve been warned not to do. And it keeps on raining, which for me, coming from drought-battered Northern California, is quite wondrous, rain a constant accompaniment to every meal, pooling through the gutters, dripping from the roof like Christmas lights, washing cars in every driveway.
After days of indoor living indoors, I have to go to the WinCo market to buy eggs and milk, or to the gym. Indoor activities are big here. The movie theater parking lot is always full. I’ve also noticed that residents seem impervious to rain. Despite any downpour, they stand outside and talk to each other, not one hoodie pulled over their heads. Kids hit balls in the rain, play soccer in the rain. They seem to ignore the rain, almost considering it the same thing as sunshine except you get wet. I haven’t seen anybody open up one umbrella.
Wild flowers bloom along every walkway, yellow buttercups, fringes of vetch can turn an entire hillside purple, oxeye daisies wave at every traffic stop. There are places so densely green, they resemble a set from Jurassic Park.
My friends from Oakland have let me know that it rained last Sunday, rain in June, not a downpour, but an extraordinary occurrence that might delay fire season by several weeks. In the meantime, I look out the window and write here in my temporary home, listen to what we can only long for in Northern California; rain continues to pour down around me.