So what do you want to do with the rain?

A Sri Lankan once wrote to a friend living in a small town called Ithaca in the State of New York. It was winter.  It was a particularly harsh winter.  Lots of snow.  Ice on the sidewalks.  People slipping and sliding.  Hard work for everyone because driveways would have to be shoveled to get their cars out.  Shoveling snow is hard work.  Back-breaking work.   Winter is about long nights and short days.  Depressing. 

Believing that his friend would be envying him for living in a tropical island with lots of sunshine, the Sri Lankan wrote to his friend, Tony Del Plato, ‘I am sending you sunshine, my friend…lots of it to keep you warm in these cold winter days!’ 

Tony is a simple man.  He appreciated the thought.  He added, ‘When it is summer I enjoy the sun and in winter I enjoy the snow’.  It’s about learning to appreciate what’s there in the natural world, whether it is sunshine or rain.  It’s not about staying out in the midday sun of course.  You can appreciate sunshine from the shade, from inside a house or from under a tree. 

It’s the same with the rain.  The skies put up quite a show when there’s a thunderstorm after all.  Loud thunder scares me still, if it’s really close.  It thrills too.  I suppose that’s why some people like horror films.  It’s still spectacular.  The drum rolls, the light-effects of thunderstorms can be quite awesome.  As long as you are safe indoors, of course. 

But rain is not always about thunder and lightning.  There’s all kinds of rain. We have passing showers, drizzles that build up into heavy rain with big, heavy drops of water, drizzles that ruffle the earth’s surface just enough to give us a whiff of dust and then go away, soft rain that we hardly feel on our cheeks and rain that persists throughout the day.  It’s pretty in whatever form it comes, but only if we allow ourselves to drop what we have been taught about the weather.  Like Tony does.  It’s not ‘bad weather’ when it rains.  It’s just a rainy day.  You won’t call it ‘great weather’ would you if you have to work or walk in the midday sun in April? 

It is all about what you do with the rain. You can watch it.  You can paint it. You can write about it.  You can dance in it (if there’s no thunder and lightning).  You can get drenched in it, happily imagining that you are in the world’s largest bathroom. 

You can also make paper boats, color and decorate them, and set them off in a drain or one of the inevitable streamlets that appear from nowhere when it rains.  It’s something Tony would not be able to do in winter where he lives, but then again we can’t make snowmen or snow angels either, can we?

If you are inside a room, go out.  It’s a beautiful day.  If you are outside and not really enjoying it, move away, wash your face, drink some water and look again.  It’s a beautiful day.  Like all days.  We can make them all drab, dry and doleful.  We can make them all beautiful.   If we want to.