I did a dangerous thing today. I took a walk in the rain. No, no I didn’t melt. But I left my iPod at home. I just walked with me and my thoughts and a Giants World Series sweatshirt. To be alone with one’s thoughts can be scary. I thought I would pray or have some great revelation about my life, once the Rihanna and Usher and other silly songs I work out to were laid to rest. But I didn’t really think anything at all.

I smelled things….it smells beautiful after the first rain. Fresh, clean, like camping. Then sometimes you get a whiff of something that’s more like wet dog and manure wrapped in a burnt tortilla. I heard the drip drops, against my hat, on the sidewalk, against my glasses. and birds having a party in a big tree. And a jogger sneaking up on me. And the cars sneaking up on me. (gotta start turning the music down…i didn’t realize how dangerous my walking habit was!)

I felt the flicks of dirt flying up off my heels to my calves. And I half-dreaded half-hoped to have one of those epic “car drives by and totally splashes you with water” moments a la Carrie Bradshaw.

ha.

When i got home, the neighborhoodlum cat was huddled under my car, looking at me with a hatred, as if i had caused the rain. i felt a spontaneous rush of affection for poor wet kitty cat, and tried to coax it out for a cuddle. he hissed at me and i went back to hating cats, and remembered how i found him crawling up my jasmine vines this summer.

There is something about the first rain that we just go mad for. I’d been locked inside work all day and I don’t have any windows, so I actually didn’t know it was raining until I saw the twelveteen postings about it on Facebook. Not that I was face booking at work. But I kinda was.

And I rushed outside my room and pressed my face up to the window, just like when we were kids. Breathing on the pane and watching the cloud of your breathe go in and out. When we were little we’d go out in the backyard and stomp in puddles, kick rain at each other, collect worms, lean back and feel it on your face, catch drops on your mouth. there was rainy day recess to look forward to, and soccer was more fun in the mud.

Now when it rains, that first rain, I want to dive into hibernation. I want sweatpants or a good onesie, candles that smell like pie, hot tea, the window open so I can hear.

Something makes you want to snuggle and watch movies, to feel blue and stare outside like in a music video, or bake. The summer clothes will go away for the next few months….goodbye bright colors and halter tops and short shorts…hello corduroy and pea coats, sweaters, scarves and mittens, and slippers! Slippers I have missed thee. These are a few of my favorite things.

I peek out at my garden and talk to my plants and tell them how cute they are with little drops clinging to their tiny leaves, stretched to Heaven. Slow jams on the iTunes, and deep inside a blanket on the couch, a movie I’ve seen a million times.

Recipe for a Rainy Day:

  • tea, hot cocoa, or apple cider
  • movie (preferably something in black and white, but any rom-com will do. they always have rainy scenes with kissing in them)
  • candles that smell like cookies and pumpkins
  • onesie, snuggie, or oversized sweatshirt. put on all three if you’re really ambitious.
  • something actually baking
  • a fuzzy blanket
  • slippers
  • a good book
  • theme music – “Rain King,” anything by CCR, “Laughter in the Rain,” “November Rain,” “Fire and Rain,” “Fool in the Rain” are my faces.
  • and a hug.