It's raining today. Normally I don't like the rain. I don't like getting wet unless I am in the shower, pool or ocean -- when I am prepared to get wet.
You can't go outside and play when it rains. Shoes get wet and make awful squishing sounds. Hair frizzes unattractively. Carrying a wet umbrella inside is awkward. Rain, rain, go away.
The first time I recall embracing rain was about eight years ago, when I was in India. I was living in India during a sustained period of drought. I think it rained twice in nine months. I welcomed that rain. I felt such an imbalance because of the lack of rain. The drops were huge. Each individual raindrop was like a grape falling from the sky. The ground rejected the rain and flooded. Trees that were so starved for the water lost limbs and leaves, but many trees simply bowed down to the rain and lay scattered in the streets.
In Rome I grew to dislike the rain again. The day I moved to Rome seemed to coincide with the start of the rainy season. I had no idea Rome had a rainy season. Thailand, yes. Cambodia, sure. Rome? Come ooon.
The rains came with our arrival in October and didn't stop until February. The Tiber River was about to flood. I had no idea that Rome averages more rain annually than Seattle (47 inches vs. 37.1 inches/year), and I never wanted to live in Seattle. I bought some stylish rain boots and sucked it up. I was living in Rome after all. I suffered through three rainy winters in Rome happy at least that it wasn't too cold a rain.
Today, back in the US, I embrace the rain once again. We need a rain shower. Not only for the May flowers, not only to help our garden grow. We need a cleansing rain to ease the allergies and clean the film of green off of everything.
I also need this shower as I enter my spring. My time of renewal and hope. I need this rain to clean me off and get me ready for my growing season. Later today I may jump into a rain puddle to celebrate, but I will do it with my rain boots on -- squishy shoes are still yucky.
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