A long time ago, I wrote another blog called Things About Rain, which has nothing whatsover to do with the rain that I am thinking about today and therefore feels completely fine skating dangerously close to a recirculated title. I actually had to look it up and see if I had already used it, and then I had to make sure that you knew that I knew that I had already used something very similiar, lest someone else point out my blunder and make it seems unintentional. Not that I am insecure.
Today I drove to town in the pouring rain. Like, the ugly-cry of ten thousand angels, rain. It was dark and cold and dreary. It made me feel like I was cut off from everything, like a frigid, wet chain link fence of misery between me and every other human being, every nice thought and beautiful feeling. It doesn't help that I have been nursing a nasty chest cold, but it was one of those mornings when your clothes and hair and face and EVERYTHING just don't feel right. But life goes on, and gainful employment beckons, and a list as long as my arm demanded that I leave my sweatpants in a sad, neglected pile on my bedroom floor, like a discarded lover, and go to town. I probably didn't have a good attitude. But the rain sure didn't help.
I just kept thinking that if only the sun would come out, everything else would feel ok. I even wore my sunglasses to see if I could trick myself into thinking that the outlook was brighter. But all it did was make me feel more cut off and isolated. I really don't know how George Michael did it all those years. I persevered through countless errands, and re-errands when I forgot parts or did things backwards, and non-errands when I went places and couldn't remember why. Turns out I can only fit so many things on the back of my hand with a sharpie. I went to work and I did my job with only a few select curse words. But that darn rain. It made all the good parts of the day, like a free lunch, and a reunion with a certain hound dog, and crossing All The Things off my list, seem less important than how ugly my hair was. It made everything feel expensive and endlessly demanding. It made the whole world seem broken and distant.
And then, just for a minute, the sun broke through. Barely. Just enough that you could almost remember that its March and someday we WILL have a spring. Or at least a summer. And it made everything better. So did the iced breve and the loud blaring of Ed Sheeran's new album (strongly recommend) in my car all the way to Deer Park and back. It made me ready for tackling another round of the Endless Adventure that is life. It made leftovers for dinner and running errands for friends and making appointments and trusting that it will All Work Out seem a lot easier. I am a big fan of the sunshine. And the people who bring sunshine into my soul even when the clouds try to stop them. Because the rain can't really cut me off from anybody unless I let it.
<3
