Of Not Walking in Rain

Four months is enough. I loathe walking in sunshine. There is no nuance, little digressive thought, only heat and sweat and more and more people striving for fitness and talking on their phones.

Rain drives people from the streets and trails. That’s what I crave—nobody around. The sun makes me a misanthrope. Rain makes me a minstrel. The sun bakes, rain soaks. I want more sogginess in my life, except for soggy thinking, which is what the sun produces.

Perhaps rain, hard rain, will end some of of the heated madness of the Pandemic. But maybe not.

I am tired of all my sun clothes. I want to wear rain attire. I want to stand under a towering Douglass fir in a deluge of rain and talk about it with the homeless man who will be camped out there.

Speaking of a homeless man, I talked to one under a shade tree and he said he was sick of the sun, too, even though rain meant hardship for him.

I want to sit under and awning or canopy when rain is crushing down and hold out my glass of fine gin and catch some of the liquid. A gin and rainwater, just like what the crazy general drinks in Dr. Strangelove.

All my rain books are gone. Everyone connected to that book is gone. My great rain dogs are all gone. Rain seems gone from Oregon. Will I ever live another great Oregon rain story? It’s been over two years since I’ve had one.