Phoenix: Does That Mean Angry Sun?

Last Thanksgiving, a year ago, Stoker and I were in Logan and it rained. I’ve been thinking about that because I miss weather. I miss the chance of rain or snow and the smell of cold and then, consequently, the smell of the heater. It’s not like I took it for granted when I lived there and had it, either. Every year I loved it. It might have been the change that I loved. Something different after sun all summer. I don’t know. Things like that are buried deeply in a person.

Here in the land of sun, it’s been cold (and when I say sun, I mean it—I long for a cloud). I’m not sure how cold, temperature wise, but cold enough to need a coat in the morning. Or a light jacket and a beanie. A few weeks ago it was still in the 80s and high 70s and I saw people in boots and wool sweaters. I think that was mainly a fashion statement because the boots were those Ug boots. Or whatever they’re called. Ugk, Ukg. Whatever. Last year I had a roommate (Anna) who fished a pair of them out of a dumpster. She was like that. I couldn’t believe she wore them, either. She might have said they smelled bad and needed a wash (perhaps why they were in the dumpster?). And there might have been holes in the soles. But she wore them anyway.

Over the weekend I watched the news because there was nothing else on and Fox began their news segment with an extreme weather news flash. A cold front was coming in and it was a breaking thing. Be prepared! Temperatures in the 60s! But after being acclimatized to the 90s and 100s, this is a sudden and vicious change. And it’s not even a pleasant, wintery change because there’s no snow! Just sun. It’s a rip-off. That’s how I feel. Cheated.

So I miss last Thanksgiving, when it was cloudy, rainy and cool and all I wanted to do was stay inside with a mug of steaming hot chocolate, fluffy blankets, and a book or a Jane Austen movie. And a Stoker.

There’s this feeling to autumn in northern Utah—and, I imagine, other places too. But it’s elusive in Arizona. Fleeting. I’ll catch it for a second or two, like when I first turned on our heater, or went outside in the dark. In Logan, it was this saturated, heavy feeling of change and rain, and when there was a slight chance of snow—you could smell that with your nose. And again, in Logan, you knew it would rain by how low the clouds were. Were they spilling over the Wellsvilles, the mountain range in the west? Because if they weren’t, if you could see the top of the mountains, it wasn’t going to rain. When it did, the clouds looked like a gray froth dripping from a cauldron (there’s an autumn-y image for you. A little Halloweenish).

But, curse Arizona. There is nothing of that. I feel like I’m living in the land of the angry sun—like in Super Mario Brothers, when you had to run from the sun. It had that angry face painted on it, and sometimes it would do a few circles, then swoop down to kill Mario with a spikey ray. You know what I’m talking about.