Blame it on the Rain

“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Dylan

Gaia’s been sick the last few days. An invisible ear infection that in turn caused a bit lip to fester into some weird, swollen, oozing sore that made my baby girl smell like an old man whose finally given up on hygiene. Meanwhile I somehow managed to log thirty working hours in three days while still taking a whole day “off” to stay home with my little geriatric. Hmmm. Anyway. Antibiotics, a good night’s sleep and a sunny walk to daycare this morning and we’re (almost) good as new.

But the sunny walk to daycare? By the time I left work I was faced with no less than a torrential downpour with the occasional sharp burn of pelting hail and wrath of thunder and lightning. Regina, like everywhere in the world it seems, is a little confused. I’d like to take a moment to point out, should Mother Nature read this blog that it is, in fact, SUMMER. But I digress. My point is not to complain. I feel like everyone else in this waterlogged town has got the complaining thing covered. Plus, it’s not my style.

So I braved the fifteen minute walk to my car with only a brief desire for the umbrella tucked safely in its backseat. By the time I got over the initial shock of going from dry to soaking wet in under a minute I realised there’s something beautiful about the rain. The way it smells (cliché, I know) and how it washes the city clean, blurring the steel and glass and making it shimmer like a Matisse painting, all brushstrokes. The way the dark clouds look ominous and lush all at once, a study in contradiction. Strolling stoically past the masses huddled under awnings with my dripping face turned up to the sky I enjoyed the rain like I had as a child (standing in wet pyjamas, barefoot with my brother on the grass in our yard, watching as my father checked the rain gauge). I even justified jumping in a puddle when I realised I couldn’t get any wetter. When was the last time you jumped in a puddle? I highly recommend it.

Small rivers dripped in my wake as I let myself indoors to pick Gaia up from daycare. She laughed when she saw me and stuck out her tongue to catch the beads of rain that dripped from my hair. I didn’t bother with her jacket, just held her close as we ran out the door, past the growing crowd attempting to wait-it-out at the entrance. The minute she felt the rain on her face she looked and me and smiled, then held her hands up to the sky to catch it and screamed with joy. We let the car’s seats be our towels and sang along with the raindrops on the windows. She clapped every time we drove through the puddles that splashed up in waves on her window.

How can you stop yourself from loving the rain? Besides, it’s only water.