The Rainy Season has officially begun

I walked home in a rainstorm today. People stood at each bus stop along Sacramento Street- on the backside of Nob Hill- like shivering sunflowers. Yet there was no chance of sun, no bus in sight, and the looks on their umbrella shaded faces were enough to make me smile. No, don't jump to conclusions- I am not a malicious person. My parents have raised me better than that! But somehow, I took great pleasure in seeing their lack of adaptability. I started smiling, I couldn't really stop.

There I was: no umbrella, no raincoat, wearing a used wool coat missing two buttons, and thoroughly enjoying the music streaming through my tiny shuffle up to my ears.

Does this ability to adapt to different climates come from somewhere? It has to. Maybe it is a nature vs. nurture question. Well, the Hall/Anderson genes are no doubt strong, (but I can think of a few family members who would wince in the rain and wait for the bus). Perhaps this is somehow part of being a Minnesotan? I wouldn't go that far either. But I will narrow this down into a theory of being a part of the Hall Family. We've grown up being loved, nurtured, and tended to with an insurmountable amount of compassion from two, loving parents. But we were never babied. We appreciated the sleep we got while cradling each corner of the conversion van on endless road trips to Florida, Texas, and Colorado. We walked on broken legs and went to school with tummy aches. Being a Hall kid, we learned how to tough it out. Kidney punches, neighborhood night games with the big brother and his friends, and the neverending list of automobile collisions has made us virtually super-human. Well, at least in rainstorms.

So after 25 minutes of climbing the hill, the bus passed me. I was one block from my apartment. All of the people I had passed on my way home were now packed so tightly into that bus they were seemingly birthed out the back door.

Nonetheless, my saturated, and overly-satisfying, trek home of theorizing has spurred me to begin a Hall Family blog. May you read, enjoy, and understand the world as a Hall through the many excerpts to come!

Sonja