Cometh The Rainmaker

Tonight was weird.

Just weird.

Came home from a haircut and it started to rain, just as I was considering going walking.

'You total and utter bastards!' I fake-yelled to the sky, to the raindrops that had started falling on my head.

'Well, isn't it good that you still have work to do?' asked d, breezily.

I scowled at the sky. Pursed my lips. 'Yes, dear,' I agreed, and, without really lowering my eyes from the rain clouds (and with the screamingly logical result that I nearly fell in through the door), I followed her in.

Did work. Because...well, what else is there to do?
Time passed, and then more time was going to pass and I couldn't put the damn thing off any more - we'd had dinner, and I'm still in the game of trying a) to walk after eating my evening meal, and b) not eating after that until breakfast time.

Got my ass out the door - the rain had stopped. Result.

I got past the gas station that acts as my first landmark. And then the rain decided I was clearly serious about this thing, and decided to fall on me. More or less all at once. I normally wouldn't do this, but I actually hid in a bus shelter, trying to outsmart the rain.

Now, I swear this is true. I was drenched. Just drenched. But looking out from my hiding place, nothing was falling. Seriously, there was water on the streets, but none of it was falling, hitting the streets. I stepped out - wallop. More rain, more me - just call me Spongebob. I stood there, getting soaked, still staring at the floor, where no rain was hitting the floor. Clearly, at this point, I was the biggest thing on the planet that wasn't actually the planet. I was the Earth's umbrella, saving all the vulnerable ground from getting wet.
'Fuck it then,' I said, out loud, striding on into a maelstrom the like of which made The Tempest look like a toddler's pee-stream. The street? Still nothing. Allll me.

There was nothing to do but keep walking. By the time I got to the back stretch of the walk, which goes through a lot of relatively deserted streets, there was only one thing to do. I turned the dial of my iPod to 80s soundtracks, and started singing and dancing to some of the best from those days. I Footloosed, I Back To The Futured, I Lost Boyed. I sang, and danced, and spun, and spread my warms to the wind and the rain and I did the whole Singin' In The Rain thing, treating the rain like a personal shower. I recommend it - it's deeply therapeutic, especially in these hideous days. Turning the whole experience of being pissed on from on high into something through which you can sing, and dance, and not care about the rain. I recommend it.

Of course, eventually, on the way round my route, it stopped raining again. And then, as I was close to home, it started again, and I didn't have the right distracting music, and the rain was relentless, and cold to the bone, and dispiriting. The point is obvious of course - ultimately the rain gets in. But while the rain is getting in, if, for just a little while, you can sing and dance and laugh too, you'll feel better. Stronger. Better and more prepared for the times when it gets in. OK, it won't keep you dry, but remembering that you can sing and dance and laugh as well as feeling the chill of the rain reminds you that the rain is not the be-all and end-all. That its power is ephemeral. That it can only get you down while you let it.

And then you come home, and get warm, and keep safe from the rain in which you can't dance. And a new day comes.