Soggy Shoulders

November 14, 2013

Soggy Shoulders

            For whatever reason one of the things I worried about most when I began walking on the shoulder of the road was getting caught in the rain.  I became obsessed with cloud interpretation.  Were they getting darker? Were they moving faster? Prior to heading out for my stroll, I would scan the skies with the frantic intensity of a post apocalyptic survivor searching for imminent signs of acid rain.

            I’ve had some close calls. I’ve walked in some light mists and one brief, moderate shower, but on those occasions I was prepared and carried a plastic poncho, so the impact of the precipitation was minimal.  My concern was being caught completely unawares in a downpour at the farthest point in my daily stroll…..and that’s exactly what happened last week.

            I mistakenly believed the television meteorologist who assured me that, despite the gloomy skies, there would be no rain.  The deluge started a third of the way into my walk. There was nothing to do but pull the hood of my apparently not waterproof windbreaker tighter and keep walking.  As I stood on the concrete island at the intersection which serves as my turnaround point, I could see the drivers waiting to make their left turns staring at me, and I suddenly realized that this had been my great fear….looking ridiculous, being the focus of critical stares, appearing foolish to strangers.  It was a situation I’d been desperate to avoid my entire adult life.  On the heels of that first realization came another one----I didn’t care. 

            In that moment I remembered a summer afternoon many years ago when my now-grown daughter was just five or six.  A sudden, non-violent summer shower caught us in the yard, and, because our house is isolated from neighbors and street traffic, we stripped to our underwear and danced in the rain.  I watched my sweet girl, sturdy, brown legs lifting and pumping as she pranced and jumped around with her long, dark hair hanging in wet waves down her back, her grinning, gap-toothed face turned to the sky, arms outstretched, and marveled at the picture of pure, unadulterated joy of being she presented.

            Somehow my daily walk has not only changed the way I look, but has also changed the way I look at the world. As some of the drivers and their passengers grinned and waved at me, I grinned back.  I did look foolish.  Here was this crazy lady standing in the rain, water running down her face, and, apparently, she was enjoying the experience. I was enjoying it!  I was soaking wet, raindrops dripping off my nose, and it was a hoot!  I’d gotten caught in the rain, and, despite what some of my former students might have expected, I didn’t melt into a hissing pile of workout clothes, wailing, “What a world! What a world!”  And, more importantly, I didn’t morph into the shamed, humiliated individual I was so often in the past. I turned my face to the sky, grinned at the clouds, and just kept walking.

            I will shamefacedly admit that, when I encounter some Chicken Soup for the Soul type saying, I’m the person who rolls her eyes at the over-simplified, sickly sweet sentiment.  After my shoulder stroll in the rain, however, I remembered a plaque I saw at a recent art fair.  It read, Life isn’t about avoiding the storms; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.  Hmmmm….okay, so maybe that one has some merit.