Bring on the rain
It was a bit of a lost day, really. The odd weather and tiredness (remnants of a hangover from Saturday night) had me in a funny mood, a bit short and snippy with the rest of the world. Cleaning the house and helping with dinner preparations had resulted in overexertion of my sore shoulder, and as a result, my right arm hung like a dead weight for the latter half of the day.
The forecasts had spoken of a thunderstorm, and I spent the day anxiously waiting its arrival, watching the skies, smelling the storm in the air - my senses have always been hypersensitive (I am ridiculously ticklish and a slight touch has the ability to send me reeling, I am the only member of my family to have perfect vision, my family uses me as a ’sniffer dog’ to check food which might be a bit squiffy, I am my mother’s taste-tester…my ears however have suffered, after years of going to clubs and gigs and standing/dancing next to the speakers/amps) and my mother has always joked that it’s due to my being born in the year of the dog, which may also explain the penchant that I had as a teen for biting people on the ankle when terribly drunk.
Sitting at my desk, restless and tetchy, surrounded by the thick air that felt and smelt of impending rain, I set myself a few menial tasks to try and distract myself from the wait…and then, suddenly, there it was. I listened to the first few hesitant raindrops landing on the awning outside my window, then felt my heart leap with joy as the slight pitter-patter turned into a magnificent downpour, drenching the ground, washing away the oppressive humidity and leaving a fresh, cool breeze in its stead.
As I sat and listened to the rain falling down, I felt the cloud that had had been resting on my forehead dissolve, melting and trickling down my face, and whilst the sensation lifted my spirits, I also felt the need to feel the rain fall against my skin growing stronger, with every second that passed the sensation grew stronger till I could resist no longer and found myself bolting into the backyard, lying down on the sodden wooden slats of the patio and closing my eyes as I felt the rain cascade over me, each drop a little drumbeat that, combined, created a symphony over my body.
Lying there, feeling every raindrop that landed on me as my body interrupted their journey toward the ground, I felt so alive and at peace that I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing out loud with sheer joy. I felt the raindrops pooling around my eyelids, trickling down my cheeks, soaking my shirt and dripping down my sides to slowly fall off my arched back. The roll of distant thunder reverberated through my bones and each lightning strike illuminated my vision through my closed eyelids, the wind blew through my soaked clothes and raised goosebumps on my skin, and I silently rejoiced at this subtle sensory overload. I lay lost in the pure physical experience that cleared my head and heart till I felt cleansed and pure, having lost all sense of space and time and conscious only of the elements surrounding me.
At last, an involuntary shiver brought me back to earth, and I opened my eyes as I felt the cold chill that had begun to creep into my bones. The world appeared alien, almost immaterial through the raindrops coating my eyelashes and blurring my vision, and I had to wipe them away with the back of my hand in order to be able to see and make my way back into the house. I made my way to the bathroom where I discarded my soaked garments and stepped into the shower, turning on a jet of water so hot that it verged on being painful and under this forceful stream I felt the cold quickly replaced by a warmth that felt almost as though it were radiating from my very being.
I made my way back to my room and lay on the bed with my eyes closed, recalling the comforting, powerful and almost sensual touch of nature as it stripped me of all my worries and cares - each raindrop that had landed on my skin seemed to have absorbed a thought, removing it from my being as gravity conducted its tireless work and pulled each of them to the ground.
I am as far from a hippie, tree-hugging earth child as you could probably get, but for me, lying there in the rain, I felt as though I’d communed with nature itself, and the experience was amazing - I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things, a minute detail on the face of the earth, irrelevant and of no consequence…yet, I am special in that I am unique, nobody else will live my life, have my experiences, sensations, thoughts and feelings as they are to me.
How humbling yet empowering, I still can’t sleep because of the high!
So, bring on the rain, I say. Bring it on.
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so did you get out in the rain yesterday when it was raining all day?? although I suspect it might have been just a little to cool for a repeat perfomance.