When Weather Is Subjective

Have you ever thought about how relative the weather, especially temperatures, can be? It all depends on what we get used to. I went to college at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, located in the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge. The climate zone there resembles parts of New England or Canada more than it does the South, where it's located. When I graduated and moved down the mountain, I didn't wear a coat at all for two winters, because they seemed so warm to me.

Leah experiences some of the same things in my novel, Sown in Dark Soil.  When she gets to the mountain farm, she can't believe Granny Em complains about the summer heat, when Leah thinks it's cool enough and quite comfortable, because she's been used to living on a southern plantation to the southeast. By Uprooted by War, the third book, Leah has become accustomed to the place, and she agrees with Granny Em. However, Leah's sister, Ivy, and the former slave, Moses, nearly freeze their first winter there.

Until I went to the Philippines to teach for a semester in a school for missionaries' children, I thought North Carolina could be warm and muggy. Spending Thanksgiving and the first part of December in their climate made it hard for me to get into a holiday mood. It wasn't what I had been used to. India was also extremely hot and humid the summer I spent there. New Mexico was so much drier than anywhere else I had lived that my skin didn't like it. However, before I left, I had adjusted. Despite the changes, I love to explore new places and stay there long enough to get to know the place - weather and all.

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