Why Rain Can’t Get Me

When I moved to Vancouver 13 years ago I was told I am moving to the most beautiful city in the world. I was excited even though I believe that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Still, Vancouver is spectacular. But I was also warned again and again that it gets wet here. On my way to the bus stop, on the bus and during the two and a half years of school many sighed and shook their heads chastising the rain again and again. Then my boys came along and I always took them for walks in the rain and I remember this particular day when Tony’s boots got filled to the brim with rainwater from a big puddle that he played in and I had to take them off and throw the water out and it was cold and wet and funny in a bedraggled chilly way. Rain never had a negative connotation for me. I have always been a rain lover. Aside from other idealistic views of life that I proudly own, I mean.Corny view? Do as you please with it, I am telling the truth.

Rain meant slosh and wet shoes and wet clothes too in elementary school. It meant yucky when I had to feed the chickens – city life with backyard chickens was how I grew up – or take my dog for a walk. Rain at my aunt’s farmhouse in the countryside meant “oh, you can’t imagine the muddiness and if you dare you won’t even get close to imagine what it’s like to feed pigs and ducks.” In university it meant wet-and-muddy-to-my-knees jeans that would not get dry until the next day because my dorm room did not have a dryer. Rain meant find a way to deal with it or else. Rain means wet everything and grey skies and puddles occasionally covered with enough muck and leaves that you miss them for solid ground and you step smack dab in the middle and hear the muckiness gurgle a mischievous gurgle as it seeps into your no longer dry shoes. Rain also means long days of great writing and realizing again and again that the green around me would not exist if no rain would fall. Rain means a good sleep with drops playing tag on my windows all night and the long slicky sound of tires waking me up in the morning. Rain means that I’m alive.

So you see, rain can’t get me. And you can tell me all you want that rain makes one’s mood slump and fall to the ground like a disgraced tired goose and I’ll stubbornly reply that I cannot change the way nature works. I can get myself rain boots, rain jackets or an umbrella if I need it, all luxuries for many around the world, come to think of it, I can step around puddles carefully and if I feel like it, I can make myself some soup, tea or coffee or hot chocolate and warm up. I can wait it out or go out and play. But still, I can’t change it. I can only change the way I look at it. And that is that I can’t be bothered. Rain can’t get me. Well, aside from wet I mean.