Watching the Game

How To Talk About The Weather

The existence of weather on the planet is surely a significant proof that the world is intended for human use. There are those who say that life derives from the random coincidence of the earth being situated a certain distance from the sun, which is to say that the weather makes us possible, and I suppose if possible then inevitable. Those people simply don't know how to take responsibility for their own souls. So what do we owe our souls? Company. To quote a friend, we're here to hang out. For that, we need something to talk about when we meet each other. We're not supposed to talk about religion, politics, or dreams, which I think means that we're really only allowed to talk about entertainment in normal conversation. That's fine, but there are a lot of people I want to talk to who have appalling, incomprehensible taste in entertainment. For example, some people like World Music. To fill that blank air, we have the weather.

It's a cliche that talking about the weather is banal, but I don't understand this. After all, it is constantly assailing our flesh, forcing us to be perpetually wrapping ourselves in fabrics. Our sky is breathing ocean water. Occasionally it zaps people. Sometimes it snows. It's interesting. We're not touring around white rooms in blue pyjamas. And it's also the only common denominator, which in a world driven by serendipity deserves a little enthusiasm, what with being the premise of every story. I'm not a weather advocate, the weather doesn't need one: if we're mean to it, it kills us. I'm just saying that there's a lot to talk about. And if you can predict the weather, you're really cool. I once met a man who knew it was going to rain by how low the birds were flying to the ground. Also, let's not forget the movie Groundhog Day.

In the case of human encounter, weather extends the possibility of conversation in two directions: temporally and spatially. In terms of time, we can look to the future, anticipating what comes next, or we can look to the past, commenting on the way things used to be. When we're thinking about the future, we may hope that the weather is good for the thing we're going to do. Then we can talk about what we do: a Subject of Conversation. Turning to the past, the weather receives a personality, often as a rascal but also as a character of tragedy, reminding us that the world itself changes. The only way to cope with this is to talk about it.

In the geographical plane, we may want to talk about what the weather is like in the place where we're from or in places we've visited, thereby creating the opportunity to describe those places and comment on other differences. If the person next to you looks up at the sky, you're only a few steps away from anywhere. Which is a little precious, I know, but thankfully it isn't in real life. It's just the most normal thing you could ever do. So there's really no sense in avoiding such an abundant and intuitive source of conversation because we think we can do better. If we didn't have the weather, we'd probably have to start off by commenting on each others' physical features. "I notice your eyes are unusually close together. Does that mean you're a suspicious person?" It doesn't work.

I shouldn't say that the enchanting orchestration of the universe isn't as tender to the animals as it is for us. I'm sure the weather has other valences that don't depend on signification, corresponding to the pristine attentiveness of the beasts, and of course to mathematics. There are those whose fidelity to the really realness of the world is so great that it compels them to deny the objectivity of human meaning. It is a brave conviction, to say that the universe is dead; that mind is a preposterous and terrifying accident of no-mind, corresponding to nothing, and thinking is all coping with survival; and that cecause it is invested with need and desire, because it is fragile and limited, thought is invariably wrong. But why would honesty require that we confine our interpretations to the realm of social superfluousness? How did we learn to grade reality, and why are we obligated to fail ourselves? I want to be tough as an isosceles triangle, but when I look at our luxurious, goose-bumply skin and the way we all get sad when it rains, I can't help believing that something hilarious is going on. And it's a good joke because it never gets old.