Rainy Day Girl

Warm, sunny days give me energy. Rainy days make me content. I used to like days when the weather matched my mood. I’m not as sad as I used to be, but the rain still makes me feel at home. I rarely wear a raincoat or use an umbrella. I love the way the water feels on my face and my head too much to keep it off. It comes down with tiny thumps and the drops cling to my hair. It’s fresh, cool. I love breathing the mist and pretending I’m in the jungle again. A hard rain with massive drops is delightful, but so is a drizzle. Thunderstorms are magical. Curling up in bed with the windows open or sitting on the porch make them even better. I love the way water droplets engulf the pavement, dark circles growing ever more dense. That splat, splat, splat, splat is music to my ears. And the way the world smells during a rain – everyone loves that.

I am that girl that stops to help the worms that wash up onto the sidewalks. Their pale pink flesh is soaked by the downpour. They’ve been washed out of their usual holes and lie spread across sidewalks everywhere. Such is the tragedy of spring. They inch their way across the pavement, their many rings expanding and contracting. When they stretch, their heads elongate into a point, gently poking about to find the grass. When the rain stops they are stranded far from the soil they call home. The sun comes out and they start to dry out. If left unsaved they become flattened crusts, indistinguishable from vegetative debris. I always do my best to help them along to the dirt. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and pluck at them until they release their grasp from the cement. Then I fling them off into the grass where I hope they recover and carry on their merry way. I hope I’m not the only one.