Why I Hate The Rain

Good morning, dreary eyed,  dull light. I grope around for my phone – the unfortunate addiction of my life. The shiny, bright screen that greets me upon the return of my soul to my body.

I hear before I see; a Hozier song I’ve come to resent after choosing it for my alarm. Bad move. It’s too early, but it always seems to be. I take a moment to listen and appreciate the day that will soon be mine.

All I need to do is stand up, but instead, I take a minute, or perhaps two. And I listen. And I look.

Gray light, stretching through my window; aesthetically pleasing but uninvited, just the same.

And I can hear the rain, oh no.

I feel heavy, hazy, lazy,

Humid, cloudy. Close the curtains roll over, turn over. No way, I say.

There’s just no way I can possibly start this day. Not like this.

Not when heavy clouds have drifted over and over; there they are, I can see them coming. I can see them lining up. Single file lines of spongy clouds, in my bedroom, in my head; in front of my face.

I can see them now, everywhere, hanging low.

And I can hear the rain, swimming in the street and in the gutter too. Gurgling and choking, failing to be digested by a congested parkway. Honking and beeping and sloshing.

Outside my window, I can see, scurrying feet and bright, artificial colors, sticking upon the black and gray and white, imposed upon the blurry, fast-paced bodies of all the cranky people. Water proof? I don’t think so. There is no such thing.

And I know today, all the people, dressed in rubber and plastic and angst, will be,

Cranky, irritated, and unpleasant to be around. Just like me. Just like you.

And you, and you, and even you, and you too.

And so I exist horizontally and close my eyes, as if I had never opened them in the first place. Just like that, the day is over before it starts. All day it will be this way. All week I will lay here, and hear, and hear, falling, unfiltered rain.

And here I am,

Waking up and hearing, retched, angry beads of water,

Beating down upon innocent concrete and earth,

Absorbing and failing to be

Absorbed.

And I tell myself over and over that a little rain will not ruin my day. It won’t. Why? Because it’s just rain. It’s just water. Water is life, life is everything. So I look for the good, and I look and I look.

But instead I see a cloudy bedroom and a cloudy sky, filled with fatigue and traffic and slippery steps and lightening and wet socks and umbrellas bumping, and people shoving, and people yelling and, people telling me to “get out of bed, it’s just a little rain.”

I hear whistles blowing and the garbage truck backing up so loudly that I throw my head under my pillow and attempt to fathom what exactly getting up and going out and being a part of that huge mess out there, may look and feel like.

I’ve tried so many times to be that person who lives for the rain. The one who goes out and runs and jumps and beams as if the sun were singing and the birds were shining and someone found the cure for cancer. I wish.

I wish I could see the beauty of this overly romanticized, favored poetic device. This source of life, of food, of sustenance.

Adam’s prayer, the earth’s desire.

A driving force, a true gift.

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But there’s nothing romantic about the rain. Throw out the songs and the movie scenes; the poems and the cliché metaphors.

I hate the rain. I hate the clouds and the disorder. So I roll over, once again. I hit snooze. And I dream…

 

The rush that comes with,

Blurry vision, lack of precision,

Forced intermission.

Monday brings ambiguity but,

Tuesday brings the rain. Every Tuesday.

And so, an intolerable amount of powerful moisture,

Drips and drives, like a fugitive on the run from,

Some cloudy prison, en route to capture and restore.

As if some magnetic force dares to draw it downward.

How can I turn my back on what I pray for?

Just for a moment, I let myself become that care free human, running free in polluted oceans of,

New York City rain, dripping and sloshing,

And slipping and dropping,

And smiling like that’s okay and normal.

To feel comfortable when my already excessive amount of clothing

Is soaked through and through, and that last yellow taxi,

Plows its way, right on through.

And I become part of it all. A voyager, instead of an observer.

Living in the moment, ignoring my relationship with time, ignoring all the pettiness and the anxiety.

Relinquishing control. For once.

 

And here I go, up and out of bed. The clouds in my head drip away; a misty path has cleared and I tread cautiously.

I open my front door and step outside. For the first time, I notice the red and yellow tulips, grounded outside of my building. I see the prominent, royal red; glowing and luminous.

Present more, now than ever.

Against all the black and white and gray.