Sunday, January 06, 2008

Rainy days

I have an unusual affinity for rainy days. I love the smell of freshly rained on dirt, and the feel of cold drops hitting my forearms. Davis winters are so perfect for me. I don't have to shovel snow as I had every winter before coming to Davis. I don't have the obligatory two power outages that winter always would bring. I just have water coming down from the sky and making the world spring up green around me.
There are other pluses of course, Like not feeling guilty for staying inside all day and reading. The extra time for homework is also nice, because you aren't wasting a sunny day on homework.
I think that some of my love for rain comes from my interest in plants. I adore plants. There is something very nice about the way a plant lives. I like the things that everyone else likes about plants, like food and flowers and scents, but I like the little things too. I like the little tendrils that vine plants send out to hold on to their surroundings. I like the way that plants lean towards the light. I like the way that their inner workings are structured, the phloem and xylem, the meristem and the endodermis.
So rain has a lot for me to love. I also love the relation my mind always makes with Ireland when rain begins to pour down. I'm enough Irish to say that I'm Irish, and I like the culture (what I know of it) enough that I'd seriously consider living there. There's just something that feels very like home when I see a field of green and rain siphoning out of the sky in sheets.
Today with the rain falling down more than it had been during any other part of the school year I felt very at home. I came to campus with no umbrella and no jacket and walked from my class to the MU holding a copy of the Aggie above my head. The sound of rain hitting the branches above me calmed my mind down.
I saw a girl walking with no covering, smiling to herself as if the world were absolutely perfect. She had her head phones on and on every surface of her face the smile was spread. This was a kindred spirit, unless she had just been proposed too, or just aced a test, she was indeed a kindred spirit. There is nothing as refreshing as walking about in the rain.
It washes everything down, including us. I never understood the symbolism behind having rain coincide with depression in film. The rain is refreshing. Maybe you don't agree, but if you just give it a chance and cherish the beautiful drops of water, the spinning polar molecules of an Oxygen and two Hydrogen atoms, perhaps rainy days will bring a full face smile to you too.

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