09 April 2003 21:14
ah yes, where was i?umbrellas. well, it doesn't seem quite right to speak of umbrellas when the sun is shining in a clear blue sky like right now, however...
sunday it was raining during church. afterwards i dropped my carload of people off at saga and then went back to the dorm and grabbed my umbrella. i'm rather fond of my umbrella. i bought it after i'd been here a year or two (and therefore had experience with east texas monsoons). now gone are the times when, for days on end, i would wear one set of clothes to morning class, come back and change to dry clothes, go to another set of classes, then come back and change to the first set while the second set dried. now i have a real umbrella (which i did find out on sunday could protect four people, provided they are in greater fear of getting wet than of each other's proximity. oh yeah, and they have to be somewhat harmonious in their movement or else there is much stepping on of heels).
i love walking to class in a rain shower, safe and dry in the midst of the raging turmoil around me. it's an extension of the feeling i get driving or sitting in a car in a hard rain. the pounding of rain on the roof, the whmmmph, whmmmph of the wipers, the constant splash of water in the wheel wells. if it's a cumulous shower, then you often get a diffuse light, bright ambient, but no direct light. this makes it seem darker outside, but light inside the car, warm and cozy against the driving storm.
an umbrella has many of the same benefits (except the harder it rains the more your ankles get wet). the rain drums on the taunt surface of the nylon, the leaves rustle in the wind and falling rain. the leaves and grass are a lush green, gorged with rain, the sky and horizon are a humid grey, thunder rumbles frequently with lightning flashes visible every thirty seconds or so. and it feels good to be alive.
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ps, let us not forget saturday afternoons of yesteryear, curling up in armchairs in the living room in front of a small crackling fire with your siblings also in their respective chairs reading books, while rain furiously lashes against the windows and the wind howls in the eves, and the ambient grey light adds an ethereal tone to the turbulent world of verdant green outside.
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