Singing in the Rain

I took my dog out yesterday for a walk in the pouring rain. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that we make such a fuss about avoiding the rain and I can’t really figure out why.  My daughter had taken our one and only umbrella, so I simply put on a waterproof jacket and headed out to our usual stomping ground. It’s actually incredibly liberating to make the decision that you’re not going to run, like all the people around you, to take shelter and you’re not even going to try to navigate around puddles.  You’re just going to take your time, enjoy your walk and become completely and utterly soaked.

I started analyzing this adverse reaction to rain and concluded that for women at least it has something to do with running mascara and wilted hairstyles... but if you take those things out of the mix and simply step out of the house with a bare face and a bed-head, there really is no reason to avoid getting wet.  (I will concede however that foggy, water-stained glasses are a pain!) For a dog-owner, a rainy day is a god-send.  You can head for a park and take your dog off-leash without worrying about encountering joggers or toddlers or cyclists.

I was so delighted to be free from the need to scout out pedestrians and skate-boarders that I just walked along care-free and let my crazy dog run through the woods under the delusion that he could catch a squirrel or a bird.  For a few wonderful minutes, the earth stopped moving, the list-maker who lives in my head stopped ordering me around, the ache in the centre of my chest stopped reminding me that my husband doesn’t love me any longer... and my thoughts roamed entirely free.  I found myself quite unintentionally thinking about how good my life was.  I found myself thinking about how interesting my friends were.  I started thinking about how I was a smart person, a relatively attractive woman, a kind and generous woman, a good and loyal friend, a person with broad interests who could find common ground with just about anyone in any walk of life, and then...suddenly out of nowhere I stumbled on the conclusion that my husband was absurdly foolish to choose not to be with me.  Imagine that!  My friends, my mother and my sister have been telling me this for a year but I was too busy examining my deficiencies to hear the message. I suppose you have to arrive at that place on your own steam anyway.  Now I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t matter to me whether or not my husband ever actually believes he gave up a great woman, but for a brief shining moment  in time, I didn’t need for him to think that I was a great woman- it was enough for me to think it.

And that’s what you get when you take your dog for a walk in the pouring rain. J