Take in a breath, deep into your stomach. It’s the weather you’re inhaling.
Is the air surrounding your body warmly, or cold? Is it filled with rain, or dry? Are there noises in the wind, or is it still? It’s the backdrop to our lives, and the colour to our days.
We’ll often turn to the weather when talk runs dry.
“It’s weird, it’s been in the twenties now for weeks”.
“Well… it’s alright for you, you’re in London. It’s been 13-14 up here!”.
“Yeah, strange that. I read an article the other day, Europe’s having its hottest September on record.”
The weather’s safe ground. It’s an experience we all share. In response to it we can express how we’re feeling indirectly. Everyone has a stake in it, even if it’s you walking round proudly drenched after a downpour.
I often carry an umbrella. Living on the British Isles with all the water carried up and over us from the sea, you need one. Nestled into the top right corner of the Atlantic, we’re much further north than the weather lets on. Find it on a map and follow a line east, you’ll skirt Moscow, Mongolia, Alaska, and Quebec before finally landing back home.
Seasonality defines the weather on these islands and, I’ll say tentatively, our British character. It comes down the earth’s axis tilting about 23.5° off-centre. In the summer we face in towards the sun; long hot days and short warm nights. In the winter, we face out to the stars and the cold dark space in between. From these annual cycles and nature’s transitions emerges, I find, a tendency for certain dispositions. We’re resourcefulness, resilient and grateful, opportunistic, indignant and expressive.
Winter’s the trial, six months where night’s the majority of each day. No shortage of wind, rain, snow, and frost. It gives us an alternative target to the government, sure. It can teach us patience, and where our food and energy come from. But by February we’re alert for the first signs of spring.
Pearly white snowdrops, orange and purple crocuses, then little yellow daffodil suns. Tree tips start to bud. The air smells milder. Warmth drifts up from the south. It’s summer. We’re glad to be alive. Basking, glowing, and making the most while we’ve got it. But, give us a few days in a heatwave and we’re off, complaining it’s too hot to think.
The weather’s influence on our mood can be subtle and obvious. After less than a handful of bleak overcast days, it’s hard not to feel down or suppressed. Walk through London on a hot summer day and you’ll see a city usually alert and anonymous, lean back and relax into itself. On bright clear days in winter, clouds vaulted out of the sky, you get that beautiful blue light pouring in.
Our bodies respond instinctively, preserving the conditions in which our inner universes tick. As with a lot of things, how you respond to the weather can change how it affects you. When not pushed to survival, there’s a choice — endure, embrace, confront, or hide. Cosy up and stay indoors? Layer up and embrace the wildness?
While the kettle boiled one morning last October, I opened the window to see what to wear. An unusually warm breeze stroked my face. Emotional textures from previous years resurfaced, each layered up on each other.
The weather’s never the same but it can bear resemblance across the years, triggering moods and memories from the past. Autumn usually does that the strongest for me. That morning in October it was a mix — memories of feeling relieved after getting out of a long-term relationship a couple of summers prior, and a school project where my mum and nan walked me round the neighbourhood at dusk collecting seeds and leaves.
Through the weather we’re made aware of our exchanges with the environment. Our modern ways of living are adding fuel and energy to its extremes. We hear about forests ablaze in Greece and California each summer, the worst floods in a decade in Bangladesh, Greenland melting faster than we thought, and new passages opening up through the Arctic. We notice spring coming earlier each year, but we’re quick to forget. The natural balance of the atmosphere is disrupted, and it could take a while to find its new form.
Also challenging is how the weather deepens inequality. Our cities and the distribution of wealth and health across them are often shaped by the prevailing wind. Over the British Isles the wind blows west to east around 2/3 of the year. It’s similar across mainland Europe. When industry was at the heart of our towns, factory owners built houses in the west to stay clear of the smog and pollution. Globally too, it’s people living in smaller, lower-income countries who are coming off worse.
Ignore it and you might get drenched, burnt, or a cold. Tune into it, and the days open up. In the weather you can feel sublime, daily; a sense of awe at something visceral, primal, and completely bigger than yourself. Look up at the clouds — where are they going, where’d they come from? It’s a drama in slow motion, an explosion of energy and elements transforming through phases and forms. That slice of sky you see is an ecosystem connected around the planet.
The weather is a thing happening to us, and to every living thing right now. Other than brief moments submerged, we spend all our time immersed in it. It’s always there, interacting with our bodies, painting our moods, and shaping our stories.
