An Ode to Foggy Days

I just love foggy days.  Mostly because I love any excuse to curl up inside, nap, read and drink tea all day.  ​​It actually lightens my darkness, so I end up having a peaceful, content day.  Depression is an old friend of mine, who is easier to embrace when the whole world matches its mood. ​ I have permission to embrace the gloom as normal that day, and it lifts me up.  ​ Sunny days ironically bring guilt and gloom to me, as I feel all the "shoulds" to get outside and enjoy them.  Of course, if I lived in a place where fog was the norm, I might feel differently.
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I also love foggy days because like snow, fog totally transforms the landscape and makes it totally new.  I love the mystery of it, and discovering what's just ahead.  Even though I already know because I walk or drive these routes every day.  But today it all seems new and fresh, and ready to be discovered.  This is both metaphorical and real, of course.

If you don't feel the same sense of wonder and content that I do, that's OK.  Perhaps some fun facts will intrigue you enough to spark some wonder and lightness in your perception.  

1. If you could look at fog through a high speed camera, you would see hundreds of tiny droplets of water moving through the air.
2. There are TEN different types of fog, which is extremely useful to know if you are a pilot.
3. Shadows are cast through fog in three dimensions that appear as "beams" oriented parallel to the light source.
4. Many ancient cultures collected water from fog.  Scientists today have developed screens that can collect up to 100 gallons of water a day!
5. The Redwood forests in California get 30-40% of of their moisture from coastal fog.
6. The presence of fog has often played an important role in historical events, such as battles.  It provides great cover for an escape.
7. Ever heard of a FOGBOW?  It's a rainbow made out of fog!

You can turn a foggy day into a science experiment with your children too (or with a curious adult).   Click here to learn how from the masters of meteorology - NASA.

If the gloom of a foggy day continues to get you down, perhaps remembering that there's still a bright blue sky above all those clouds.  If you can just muster the means to fly high enough over your own clouds to see it.