100 Blogs in 100 Days: (Day 45) - "Walking in the Rain"

As I’m walking home for lunch very quickly I take a long look up at the sky. It’s looking ominous. I quicken my pace so that I am walking as fast as I possibly can without jogging. Maybe if I were walking straight home from work I would have been fine but unfortunately I had to make a stop to pay my rent.

After I left following the quick stop I walked outside and it was coming down. I was only 2 blocks from home so I didn’t panic… it was just some rain. In fact, it felt warm and refreshing. I walked those 2 blocks savoring the rain. As I savored the walk my mind drifted to other times when I walked in the rain.

During this time of the year when the rain is warm and soothing I love to walk in it. Sometimes when it really starts pouring I’ll run outside and go for a nice walk. I feel like it washes away my baggage because when you are walking out there and those drops are saturating you all you have is that moment. It’s like shaking an etch-a-sketch and finding a clean slate.

I remembered one particular time I walked in the rain. I was walking on Elmwood Avenue and I had my trench coat on. My hair and head were soaked and I was walking softly and slowly down the street really enjoying each drop. Approaching me rather quickly was a girl who hurt me a year or so earlier. She was walking with a fella and as I approached them I was hoping she’d be too distracted by her dude or the weather to notice me but I wasn’t that lucky.

She said; “Eddie!” and gave me a brief wet hug. She asked; “What are you doing out here walking in the pouring rain?” I thought about asking her the same question but instead I shrugged my shoulders and mentioned how I liked to walk in the rain. She gave me a weird look and then like a thought struck her, her face normalized and she concluded; “Its okay, you’re poetic”. I smiled and said bye. I continued my walk but for the rest of it I thought about her. I spent a few months getting to know her and I had high hopes for us going forward but it wasn’t to be and since we didn’t have a future I wasn’t going to hang around and be her good friend who she’d run to whenever she needed someone while when I needed someone she’d be with some dude.

As I finished the walk that day I imagined that the rain was washing her off of me. I pretended that I was being cleansed of her and that she’d leave my heart forever. I’ve never seen her since that day. I wish her well. The only time I ever think about her is when I’m walking in the rain.