The Ominous Clouds

As little black flower tops of umbrellas popped open and people scurried around trying to find shelter, after a very long time I remembered how rain really felt like. Rain! People have such a love affair with it. Some people love it some people hate it, and some people are just okay with it no emotions nothing. But for me I have a complicated relationship with it. I still remember when I was a kid that I used to love rain. I would incessantly ask my mother if I could go out and play in the rain and I still remember the extreme happiness I felt when she would put aside her motherly nature of caring for my health and look deep down inside me to the little child who just wanted to go play in the rain, no pre requisites, no strings attached nothing to gain nothing to lose, just go and play in the rain and she would nod her head keeping her own childish smile at bay. I would go out and look up at the sky and let the tiny droplets sting my eyes for little bit until they could take no more and partially blinded, I would run around in no particular pattern in the garden of my house. I think that in addition to the fact that I felt really happy, I would look at the rain as nothing but joy. I would have no presumptions, no requirements, nothing just pure and simple I wanted to be in the rain. I wouldn’t think of the consequences of what the rain might do to the millions of people who probably would be suffering or for that matter, the millions of farmers who had their crop out at that time of the season.

I think more than anything I was always happy in the rain, but as times change and they certainly have I really don’t feel that joy that sudden urge to run out and play in the rain. As I grow older (and supposedly take on more responsibility) the more I relinquish the very childish nature of things that I looked at. I used to have this knack of natural things a way about me that wanted to care for the life of the living things and not that I don’t anymore, the passion is completely gone. Decades have passed and I can still remember the sweet smell of the earth that emanated from the garden after the rain, I still remember that almost always, the electricity would go out during the rain, and my entire family would sit outside as darkness would fall and despite the humidity outside a subtle wind would blow now and then and I would feel so content and happy that it was unbelievable.

I try to recreate that same sensation now, but since rain usually destroys my “mood” while I trek my way across the puddles to work, I really don’t pay any attention to it but rather try to avoid it. Now during the rain I look up and even before the rain drops have a chance to sting my eyes and try to obliterate my resistance to happiness I sense the dark and ominous clouds that produce the rain and I wonder to myself “wow, never really looked at those clouds before closely” and even before I have a chance to break my shackles of responsibility and run towards the unbound populace, I put my head down and walk faster becoming one with the crowd of people who are trying to get away from the rain while my old friend still beckons.