I am sitting in bed, cup of coffee within easy reach (Irish living hasn’t converted me to an exclusive relationship with tea), watching the rain lash sideways against the windows, listening to the wind howl. Usually when it’s rainy, people here call it a “grand soft day,” but there’s nothing grand or soft about this weather. Two nights ago, the rain and wind were so loud it sounded like our house was going through a car wash. Seriously. This is the kind of day that keeps a person home, bundled up in blankets with a good book and a hot beverage of some sort, preferably seated comfortably in front of a roaring fire (which I’ll probably make later).

It seems silly to blog about the weather, but truthfully, people talk about it a lot here. I remember last year after first arriving when it rained all day, every day, for nearly 4 weeks, thinking the Irish would have some magical way of dealing with the rain that Americans haven’t discovered yet. They don’t. They just talk about it. A lot. And they feel no compunction about scrapping a day’s plans when the weather is nasty so that they can stay indoors where it’s pleasant… just one of the many reasons I love the Irish. This year, we’ve been incredibly fortunate with the weather; the Sunny Southeast has certainly been living up to its name, but with the end of October comes the end of long sunny days, and the long winter nights are looming large on the horizon.

There’s something oddly exhilarating about this wild weather, though. I find myself imagining what Ireland was like decades and centuries ago, when people lived by firelight and candlelight, when there were no street lamps or even streets, and it becomes easy to understand why there are so many great ghost stories from this country. All you have to do is hear the wind shriek like it has been the past few nights, and you begin to wonder if maybe there really is a banshee wandering around out in the fields nearby. Weather like this is poetic, tragic, and romantic all at the same time, and, strange as it may be to say so, I know I’ll miss it when it’s no longer a part of my almost-daily life. (Hey, I’m a musician. We like poetic, tragic romance.)

In the meantime, great as it is to experience the raininess from inside our cozy home, eventually, I know I’ll have to go outside. After all, there is work to be done. And when that happens, I’ll do what all Irish people do: give myself a little pep talk, bundle up in copious amounts of layered clothing, grab my strongest brolly that can withstand the high winds, open my front door, and put one foot in front of the other. And when I get to where I’m going, I’ll peel off my saturated rain gear, pour myself a cup of tea (or coffee, whichever), and immediately turn to the person next to me to hash out every detail about every drop of rain falling sideways from the sky. For now, though, I think I’ll go light that fire.