2. California Freezing
Our plane has landed. Our 3-½ month California sojourn has begun.
It is cool here in the Bay Area -- highs in the low 50s and upper 40s, overcast, and misty. Nothing that would stop a Midwesterner from taking a long walk. Marcia and I hiked ridge trails above Berkeley the past two days and had a great time. But the damp chill immobilizes the thin-skinned natives.
“Don’t go outside Dad. You will freeze to death,” warns my eldest daughter, Clara.
“Really?” I ask. “I thought freezing took place at 32F, not 49.”
Alas, my daughter Clara is now a Californian: someone who conflates the sunshine with the sacred, someone who believes that four consecutive days of clouds and drizzle constitute some sort of moral lapse at the very least, and most likely herald the end of days.
Clara and her friends maintain the current rain and cold spell is unprecedented. I’m not so sure. The graph below breaks down average days of rain in San Francisco by month. 12 rainy days are expected in December. It doesn’t seem so far-fetched that four of these rainy days would occur consecutively, especially since weather fronts tend to linger. So why the gloom?
The problem, I believe, runs deep. Here in California, happiness is a civic duty. This is a difficult concept for Midwesterners to wrap their heads around. In the Midwest, happiness just happens. Or it doesn’t. In California, happiness is a job. Everyone’s job. Convincing the rest of the world that Californians are happier takes a lot of effort, even when the weather is at its best.
West coast residents seem to be good at their work. A Nobel laureate published a paper reporting that students who live in California aren’t really any happier than students residing in Michigan and Ohio.1 But California students think they are happier than Midwesterners, and midwestern students think Californians are happier as well.
It is difficult to maintain that mythos when it rains for (brace yourself) four days in a row.
Fortunately, the gloom hasn’t held. It is sunny today, and will be for the next several days. I’m so happy. Most likely happier than you.
Weather aside, Marcia and I are adjusting slowly. We have been living in a progression of accommodations -- a rental apartment near the Stanford campus, a hotel in Palo Alto, an Airbnb in Berkeley, and now in Clara’s Oakland house while she is away with her family in San Diego. On January 1st, we move into the home we will rent for the next three months.
In the interim, we are dragging our suitcases and dirty laundry from place to place, looking for coffee shops and washing machines. With three children 4 and under, Clara’s home is in a perpetual state of pandemonium and unsuitable for adults our age. Also, the laundry room is continually in use. It is easier to reserve time on the Hubble telescope than my daughter’s dryer.
We look forward to settling down in the New Year. Which reminds me: [Insert here cliché wrapping up 2021 and wishing everyone health and other good stuff in 2022. Or at least wishing everyone a relatively mild case of Omicron].
When I next write, Marcia and I should be living in our rental home and developing the beginnings of a routine. What will it be like? We will keep you posted.
Paul
1DA Schkade and D Kahneman. Does Living in California Make People Happy? A Focusing Illusion in Judgments of Life Satisfaction. Psychological Science. 9(5): 340-346. 1998.