Walking in the Rain

Yesterday evening I took the dog for a walk in the park. Right after we got out there it started raining. It was only a light rain, so we decided to keep going and just ride it out. The path through the park has trees that hang over most of the trail, so they blocked most of the rain from hitting us. All we really got was the large slow drops of water that would randomly fall from the leaves of the trees. It wasn't long before the rain picked up and even the trees couldn't completely block it from hitting us anymore. Getting wet was unavoidable at this point, so we decided to just keep walking.

Walking in the rain is one of those often overlooked beauties of life. You can feel the air getting cooler. You can smell an earthy freshness that comes from a world being cleansed. You can watch puddles form, and then watch raindrops splash into those puddles and then jump back up into the air. And you can look up into the sky and watch the rain fall. This was particularly fascinating yesterday since the sun was still shining and there were relatively few clouds in the sky above. The rain seemed to fall from the sky itself.

On days like this I like to tilt my head up and close my eyes and just feel the rain running in trickles down the sides of my face and through my hair. I like the soothing pattering that it makes as it bounces between the leaves of the trees or splatters onto the concrete. I like to watch people scurrying for cover, holding shirts, newspapers, or purses over their heads to help keep from getting wet.

On our walk we go past this little grill with an outside deck. Yesterday they had a live band performing outside. All along the deck little tables with giant umbrellas were scattered here and there with people huddling under the brightly-colored mushrooms, eating their dinner and listening to the band. The scene and the music added a certain ambiance to the evening that just sort of fit.

We completed our walk, making it back to the car at the exact moment when the rain finally stopped. The dog and I just stood there looking at each other, drenched in every aspect of the word, with a certain understanding that can only be summed up with the phrase, "It figures."