Rainy day letter.

Dear rainy day,

The other morning--Tuesday--when I woke up and you, rainy day, were happening, I was taken aback. I had a plan for what I would wear that was now rendered, entirely, moot. And the new plan wasn't all that helpful--while I had a raincoat, I did not have a hat nor an umbrella. In fact, out of all the clothes and accessories and accoutrements I have for weather, I have never really accounted for the way that rain gets one's head wet. Which meant, rainy day, that I walked to class carrying books and sheafs of poems, not to mention my regular purse and so forth, getting soaked and more soaked. Plus, that morning I treated my alarm like it was just a suggestion, so I was late. Late, panicky, and soaked.

Let me pause to ask: where is my umbrella? My hypothetical umbrella, which I contemplate purchasing every year. There are endless stylish umbrelli, umbrelli aplenty. You'd think I'd have bought one about ten times--but no, I have no umbrella, and thus I find myself periodically in a soaked frame of mind, questioning my judgement and also the weather.

But truthfully, the weather-questioning happens only briefly. I love rainy weather. In fact, rainy is the weather I carry around inside.

Periodically, one of the women in my writing group gets after me a little because--and this is absolutely true--much of what I write is melancholy, too melancholy from her point of view, like a moody teenager's work, except about grown-up subjects, and maybe the subjects are a moody teenager's too. I can't disagree with her. Sometimes I point this out to myself. But to rain and to melancholy I always find myself returning.

I had a big break in my work day today, and because the past few weeks have been full of long, long work days, I decided to leave campus for an hour or so. As I drove, the sky pillowy and pearly, I thought how lovely, how perfect, really. It's mid-April, the weather is cool, the weather is wet. The weather is not sunny, at least not commitedly so. It is the weather I want to be out in, or looking out upon. It is my best weather, and maybe that's why I do such a lame job of sheltering myself from it.

Rainy day, I am looking forward to a great, extended swath of you, with or without a hat.

Please don't let me down,

htms

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