Hunker down

As foretold, Hellos was off and away on Friday.  He'll visit only occasionally over the next 5 months.

Now are come the leaden skies that drag at the people's hearts.  They weigh on the sunny-spirited immigrant lady and the chin-scratching stoner.  Not just they.  The jolly barrista and the surly, tatooed sandwich maker.  The shaggy-browed coffee-house scribbler and the glowering doorway cigarette-smoker.  All of us here in Portland and throughout the Pacific Northwest.

It is to be endured and we endure it.  We hunker down.  We trade sardonic jokes and slurp coffee.

"How ya doin' today?"  Spend a beat to consider, then shrug.  "They ain't throwin' dirt on the box yet."  Grin.

I swear, I don't mind.  I was born under this gray, despotic sky.  As much as anything, it has made me what I am.  There is even something to love in it.

Cascadia peoples endure sorrow well.  But you musn't believe that, come the drizzly spring, our lonely hearts don't yearn.  You musn't believe it.