Gnurple dot Net

From the memories department:

Here’s a little snippet dredged out of my memory, inspired by a message from somebody who expressed their enjoyment of being outdoors in all weather, day or night, rain or shine.

When was the last time you had fun in the rain?

I think back to a couple of summers ago. I’d biked over to a friend’s house for dinner, which turned into drinks, hanging out, etc. and ended up being a fun but late night. But it was also a warm night, and a beautiful night with drizzly weather, so I decided to bike back home despite an offer of a ride back.

I got about two or three blocks out and then the drizzle turned into big, fat, sloppy raindrops. The kind of living rain that almost looks like sheets waving in the streetlamps. But at this point, I’m already into my journey. Bike rides are like that for me. Once I start, I don’t want to stop ’til I’m done. Gotta keep on keepin’ on. Along the way I decide my shirt is not doing me any good at all. It’s not keeping me dry, it’s not keeping me warm, so I take it off — at this point, biking around in a downpour, I’m already the weirdest person out there, so I have no dignity to lose. It feels good, a little like taking a shower in an infinitely huge (and oddly-decorated) shower stall. At some point a guy and a couple of girls walking on the sidewalk — obviously drunk — make catcalls and yell “woo!” and “hey baby!” at me. I laugh and wave, and keep on truckin’. That felt good, too.

Eventually I turn onto the last street, the final stretch for home. I feel a strange sense of relief, contentment and disappointment all rolled up in one. Normally on this stretch I would speed up on the downhill part so that I’d have some momentum to slowly shed on the final uphill part, but this time I slow down instead of speeding up. I don’t want this to end so soon. I look around at the rain moving through the light of streetlamps. I watch little streamlets of water being thrown off of windshields by wiper blades. This is a different world, and I feel sort of awed and privileged to have been in it.

The only other time I can think of where I really enjoyed the rain was years ago when my girlfriend at the time managed to convince me to go for a walk with her in the rain. I thought she was mad (well, OK I knew she must’ve been somewhat crazy, she’s going out with me, after all, right?) but thought it might be fun, or at least shared misery, so I went along.

It really was loads of fun. There’s nothing quite like the carefreeness of being out in the rain. All pretenses of being a dignified human adult are dropped. Your clothes are soaked, your hair is sticking to your head and you resemble a forlorn wet dog. You have nothing to lose. You jump in puddles like a five year old. Why not, right? You worried about getting wet? *grin* You know your clothes are going in the laundry machine just as soon as you get home.

Come to think of it, there was one other time, when a bunch of us were at the cottage and it was raining out and we spontaneously decided that it would be fun to go and dance in the rain out on the deck. But that’s another story for another time.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS