The Rain, The World

I’ll often stand beneath the rain. It feels like a soothing balm gently calming the torrent that often crashes through my life. I used to think of it as purifying, that it could wash away every harsh memory entrenched in the fibres of my being; but that was impossible.

Instead, I take it merely as is: an edgeless formless mass, softly and cooly trailing the rain's sweet misty pattern across my skin. It's a mindset that strikes me randomly; the desire to be soaked, to be swaddled by the basics of nature. When I was a child one of the few times I would be excited to ever go outside was sporadic torrential rains; storms that would turn our streets into shallow rivers.

Now as an adult, I usually won’t intentionally dive out into a storm, preferring to listen to that pittering rap against the window pane from within my warm apartment. However, often, the rain still finds a way to draw me out; rushing from its hiding spot, behind the clouds, with no warning or slyly slinking away for minutes at a time before returning with a vengeance. At these times It’ll catch me outdoors, far away from home and shelter. I’ll usually be with my dog, in sandals, wearing the most bare of clothing. And usually, it’ll find me in some contemptuous cantankerous mindest fit only for Ebenezer Scrooge or Lex Luthor. Only to softly - yet firmly- slap me out of the cavernous divulges of my brain and into the earthly smelling expanse of London's better half.

There I find myself hunkered beneath a tree, soaked to the soul alongside my dog, panting and smiling from the effort to find even this meager shelter. Much like the water, I feel as my senses absorb the surroundings, the aforementioned earthy smell of the dirt struck from heaven. The samba dance of trees in the wind, the panicked and energetic faces of my fellow persons as they scurry to and fro from house to car or car to business.

It would be wrong to say I come alive in the rain, however, I do feel more alive in the rain; or, rather, present.

I take the time, just to stop, pause and look.

Just... really look, no thoughts just emotion.

And what I’ve found, truly, through that is that without the burdens of my life, the responsibilities, the insecurities, the past mistakes; I am genuinely happy. And that's an oftentimes disturbing thought to myself, with everything that's wrong with the world how and why do I get to sit back and enjoy what is coming to me? We humans sit at the forefront of technical innovation and yet we still dramatically lack in the social and spiritual aspects of our culture - Not organized religion get that out of my fun rain time-.We are as disconnected as ever from each other and ourselves; our exploits often lead to mass human (Not to mention animal) suffering, for little to no gain for the individual. I know this and still feel like I both don’t know enough to fight it or do nearly enough currently to combat it.

But none of that matters to me in the rain; it doesn’t matter to me when I let the cool spring of tap water wash over my hands after a long day; it doesn’t matter to me when I close my eyes in a torrent of a lukewarm shower nozzle.

Rain cannot erase my mistakes, it cannot cleanse my sins, it is just water. A shamelessly unapologetic mass, formed into a shape or role we desire, before being let down the drain and returning to what it meant to be...

Nothing.