A walk in the rain! Among all glorious, inspirational, free things to do, I rank walking in the rain somewhere close to the top. I am admittedly a walking-in-the- rain nut; I don’t remember a time when sloshing along wet street and pathways, watching the ever-changing reflections, blinking away the water in my face wasn’t all-out delight.
Well okay, maybe not Hurricane Ida. There are differences between walking in the rain and trying to stay upright in a hurricane. As it happened, I arrived in Manhattan last September at the exact same moment as did Hurricane Ida. There being nowhere in the place I was staying to get anything at all for dinner – and because I just never turn on TV sets – I struck out in search of a pastrami reuben. Not smart. My 120-pound self was no match for THAT rain, and I barely made it back to the lobby and the streaming admonitions everywhere: Take Shelter. Stay Indoors. Stay Away From Windows. But I scored a pastrami reuben from one not-yet-closed shop. Walking in hurricanes and deluges is, for the most part, outside the scope of this essay.
Walking in today’s rains, if you’ve lasted through the parched months of the American west, is somewhat of a sacred experience: heightened rain appreciation. The trees drip heavenly mist. Delicately-scented moisture cocoons you. What can I say?
Nearing Rain Time recently, my friend Bob Dodge, who lives a few miles south in Portola Valley, began to despair. Downpours were predicted, but he waited throughout the night “for the sound of rain dripping from the oak leaves outside our bedroom window. Silence. I got up at right around 7:00, looking out to see overcast skies but no rain falling from those clouds. 8:00 came and San Francisco was hidden from view but the walkways were still dry . . . Where is the promised rain?!?” He thought first it might be that his fancy rain gauge on the roof was in the wrong spot, “but I am no longer allowed to go up on the roof of the house due to my advancing age.” At last report he was looking for volunteers to climb up onto the roof and move the rain gauge.
I have now checked in once more with the Portola Valley Rainman.
“The rains arrived in sheets and torrents and lasted for what seemed endless hours. Our total rainfall was about 8 inches, almost the total rainfall for the winter behind us,” he replied. I thought, knowing my reporter from the south pretty well, that he would have been out sploshing in puddles for sure.
“Alas, I did not walk in the rain. But I did walk this morning in Lake Dodge, which appeared on our garage roof during the storm. The primary drain was clogged with leaves and other debris and needed to be opened up else the whole roof might collapse. So this 85 year older got out the ladder, informed his wife of his intentions and climbed up to do his job as he has done for the past 51 years at this location. Mission accomplished. Ladder put away. Rubber boots removed and stored again. Back inside to refill my coffee cup before sitting down with my latest book. Life is good.”
The joy of rain, reconfirmed.