What is there about rain that either makes you love it or hate it? It is like THE 40 days of rain around here. Except forty came and left us and we’ve had rain almost every day since the end of May. We get a few minutes of sun most days, but we can almost guarantee that a shower will crop up soon. Poor people in central Texas have made up for a lot of dry years this year getting some twenty inches outside of Austin a week ago and almost as much in the DFW area. If you haven’t had to endure a flood, it really isn’t all that bad here. It isn’t 110 in the shade like it can be in Texas summers. The afternoon is still a negotiable time to run errands. The rain makes all the dust go out of the air and it just smells cleaner. If you have straight hair, it is still straight on a rainy day, so no particularly bad hair days, either. The only drawback is the exceptional crop of mosquitoes to come out of the deluge, but even they are lying low while it rains. And not one serious ozone report for days when the sun is the closest to the earth. Okay, enough for the weather report.
Can you tell I rather like rain? I should add my disclaimer here and tell you I don’t fare nearly as well on cold, rainy days. However, one of my favorite things to do is go for a long walk in the summer rain. I love to feel the pelts of water and smell the asphalt streets and dampened dust of the earth. (Okay, I realize it looks weird to walk in the rain, but I’m going out on a limb here and confessing my true feelings.) Rain awakens something in me. It grows an awareness of the majesty that both sun and the rain possess. Both are beautiful in their own way. And so it is in our lives—the rain, even in the darkest nights have a remarkable beauty in them. I like sunny, breezy days, but I also enjoy the rainy ones—even forty-something of them.