For years I hated the rain. Couldn’t stand winter. Wanted to be far south, warm, covered in sand and salt water, the blue sky swelling to the edges of what is visible.

Embarrassing fact: I regularly wore Hawaiian print shirts in middle and high school.

Fact of even greater embarrassment: I had frosted tips in my hair.

I’m still working to forgive myself this long gone lameness.

So what’s changed (besides, thankfully, my attire and hairstyle)? It seems, in my return to this abandoned homeland, that I have found the way to thrive in the wet dark winters.

Get outside. Especially in the worst of it.

We’ve made a regular practice of this—hiking in downpours, walking in the drizzle, paddling with numb hands under the gray gauze that typifies a Seattle sky.

And the fall has been amazing. I can’t get enough of the cool dark days. The flooding ravines and lingering smell of rot and slow growth. The striking pale blue sky after the clouds’ departure. Everything is crisp and lush at the same time.

Walking with River and Elle, paddling alone, sitting under the eave at the heaviest rains. I’ve had a good fill this fall. But I’m still hungry for more.