Rain

I have an interesting relationship with rain. When I was a small child, I remember loving it. Whenever it rained in the summer, we would get to go out and play in the rain. In fact, I don't remember playing in the water much unless it was in the rain. As I got older and went to real school, rain began to be a barrier to fun activities like field trips and recess. One of the first field trips that I went on had to be changed because of a torrential downpour. And let me tell you, playing board games in the classroom when you want to run around and play tag just doesn't cut it.

As a teenager, I hated rain because it messed up my carefully done hair and makeup. It's hard to keep that mascara looking good when you are drenched, and it seems that my hair always frizzed up every time it even thought about raining. Then I learned that driving in the rain is not a fun activity either. Not because your own driving skills are impaired, but because everyone ELSE freaks out about there being water on the road. The same thing happens when it thinks about snowing. Not so fun.

When I was a junior in college, I can remember it rained for days on end. This was the same year that the sun came out maybe 2 days for the whole month of February, so we were already aching for some sunshine. I was reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book One Hundred Years of Solitude (or more correctly Cien Años de Soledad as I was reading it for a Spanish Lit class) and we came to the flood section. Strangely, it rained and rained, and rained some more, as we were reading this in class. The literature came alive for me in a new way. I was able to feel with the characters the frustration and depression that comes when so much water is falling from the sky. You begin to believe that it will never stop.

I realized yesterday, as I was looking at the cloudy, darkening sky, that I was excited about it raining. In fact, I now check the weather to see when we can expect the next rain. Living in Texas, going through a bad drought, has changed my view of rain. Rain is good. It brings life and cooler weather. It replenishes thirsty streams and ponds. It cleans all the nasty stuff off of the roads, plants and buildings. It often takes away electricity. We have to stop what we are doing, look out the windows and be blown away by the power of nature. We try to hard to insulate ourselves from being affected by nature, but it is most often rain that forces us to recognize that we are NOT all powerful. We are subject to the control of something far greater than we.

Now get back to work.