Raindrops

I got a chance to walk in the rain the other day. August 31st, actually. I got to say goodbye to my summer by walking a euphoric 38 minutes in the constant drizzle-pour-drizzle. It was glorious.

I love the rain. I am not a creature of the sea, but part of me always feels at home when I hear the rain. A soft drizzle on my skin reminds me that I’m alive. The spots on my glasses remind me of the windshield of a car, and like that car I can get out any time I want. Because I am not my glasses. I’m not my body. And, with my hands outstretched and my soggy clothing clinging, the rain gets that.

I sleep with the radio politely on. But evenings when it is raining, I listen to that alone. It has sent me peacefully to slumber when mental or physical pains thought to keep me otherwise awake for hours. While it’s true that there may be more comfortable things to hug and snuggle into – blankets, sweaters and people, for example – the rain holds you like a lover. The rain doesn’t pretend that the world is magically bright or wonderful. Nor does it seek to suggest that it’s dour and ugly. It knows that for every flower there is an overcast day. The rain knows every cliché.

The rain cries for you when you don’t have the strength to do it yourself. Like the world itself is releasing some pent up emotion, you cannot help but get swept up with it even if you can help sharing the tears.

Optimism can be a tricky thing. Even optimists can see that, half-full or half-empty, the cup could always have a lot more liquid in it. One of my favourite metaphors is flying. Specifically, not forgetting to fly. “Don’t forget to fly,” I tell people who I know have the sight – the capacity to see the world as it really is. Hook is one of my favourite movies, and once Pan remembered how to fly, everything else was in the bag. We can fly. We can be bigger, and better, and more magnificent than anything else in existence. Our childish imaginations, our lover’s hearts, and our moral souls are all echoes of this fundamental truth; this what-we-can-be. Don’t forget it, I say. Don’t forget to fly.

But as liberating as it is, to imagine one’s self breaking away from the chains of every-day monotony, grief, worry, and stress. It’s not very realistic. Because realistically, family and friendship politics are complicated. And two people can be in love but also not be perfect for one another. Unfortunately, a corporation that wants to change runs the risk of changing into non-existence. Some things you just can’t fly around.

But the rain is beautiful within that world of chains and complications. It has always represented to me a comfortable neutrality in the way that it represents reality. It says in its various forms: “yes. There are sucky parts about the world. And they are here to stay.” But despite what people often think reality is the best soil for optimism to grow in. Real love, success, happiness, and joy is not raised in blindness, but grown through the care of earnest hearts and open eyes. Optimism is nothing more than the desire to see such things grow.

Grow they shall, in spades, in the rain. That’s what I like about it.

A wet-t-shirt contest (as wonderful as it is) will never compare to the beauty of your breathless lover running in the door after being caught en route in a freak rainstorm.

(Yes, your hair is wet and frizzy. A mess, even. You’ve never been more beautiful.)

So when I found myself successful and happy about how my morning had gone on the 31st, with no where to be and all day to get there, I decided I wouldn’t take the bus. It was raining, and I wanted to walk home.

The rain will never dare say “everything will be okay.” But it does help you feel it.

Play in the rain,
- Z