Oh no, it’s raining! All your outdoor activities planned for your fun day in Florida…cancelled. One after another, your tennis, pickleball, maybe even your golf games are suddenly washing away with all of this wet stuff falling from the sky. Even though the fishermen may be excited, scrambling to put together a fishing venture in this rain (and I just learned that these sort of soft, drizzly days are great for taking out a sailboat to wash off the sails), my boating plans have also just been cancelled.
Here, a rainy day in winter is certainly less expected than our typical afternoon summer thunderstorms that roll in like clockwork every afternoon. The summer storms are almost guaranteed to blow in with their black clouds, violent lightening, and wild winds. While the summer storms demand our attention, they’re still predictable in timing, and we usually learn to plan around them. Crashing in with a thunderous noise, they’re also quick to pass and leave us with an evening of puddle jumping and beautiful sunsets.
But here we are in the beginning of ‘Season,’ when our northern friends are coming down to enjoy our beautiful sunshine and palm tree lined streets. So…what do we do now? Because these soft winter rains are so few, I actually welcome the change and unique feelings of a gray, rainy day. I grew up in Michigan and lived in St Louis for many years; and while both of those places will have a sweet spot in my heart, I really did hate when I’d open the front door, tennis shoes on, ready for my morning run…only to find the sidewalks covered in ice. Thank goodness we’re looking at rain instead of ice on our sidewalks. One of the best things about Florida is that we really can get outside every day, somehow.
So, we adjust for the unexpected winter rain, take advantage of its uniqueness. You can still go to the Naples Botanical Garden, close your eyes, and immerse yourself in the sweet smell of wet dirt, the pitter patter of water dripping on the leaves. You can enjoy the Naples Zoo and watch how excited the animals get, playing in the cool winter rains. Grab an umbrella – or not – and run our greenways, visit the Everglades, visit a park, walk along our sidewalks, and enjoy the small-town feeling of Old Naples. Wander out to the Pier to appreciate the pretty picture of the birds decorating this calm, overcast sky. And of course, my favorite space, rain or shine, we do still live on the Gulf of Mexico, which means we’ve got miles of open spaces to run or walk or skip or talk or laugh or whatever it is that you like to do outside. The day isn’t cancelled, it’s just a little damp.