thoughts on the weather

It rained this morning.

It is still raining now, but it started early this morning, pattering soft and full against the ground.

I slowly filtered up out of a dream in which I already was very late to work, and I couldn't manage to get everything together, not my lunch, not my keys and wallet, not my umbrella. And as I ran around trying to figure out where my umbrella could have gotten off to, I started to panic about having lost it, because of course it was raining and I needed it.

I woke up and thought "well, at least I haven't lost my umbrella."

But when I got to the shelves by the front door, I had my lunch, my keys and my wallet, but my umbrella was not there, and it was not in my backpack, and I had the horrible realization that I had left my umbrella at work. Because, you see, sometimes it rains in the morning but stops before the time I leave for home, and it has not rained here in a long, long time.

So I considered my options. I could hail an Uber, but rain like this causes terrible surge pricing.

I could walk outside as is, and arrive at work looking like a drowned rat.

I could put on the closest thing I have to a raincoat, which is my winter jacket. But although it was raining, it was not much cooler than it had been yesterday, which was not very cool at all. I shrank at the thought of the warm winter coat.

I french-braided my hair in the bathroom but without facing the mirror, because my mirror-twin is no help when it comes to my spatial awareness. My arms burned. It was warm in the apartment. I longed for last weekend, when the apartment was 67 degrees and dry, instead of 80 degrees and humid.

Winter jacket it was. I left the zipper undone, held it loosely together in front of me, hoping it would have less luck insulating my body with a large vent. It funneled rainwater down to my thighs. My hair and shirt stayed dry. I did not look at passersby with umbrellas. I pitied myself enough to want to avoid the possibility of seeing more in someone else's face.

My rainboots are not very comfortable. They wear little blisters into the bottoms of my heels and then grind away at them. But at least my feet are dry.

I arrived at work to see my pink polka-dotted umbrella peeking cheerily out from beneath my desk.

There is a section of my legs, from thighs to mid-calves, that is completely drenched. I am trying to tell myself that this would have happened with or without the umbrella. I greatly dislike wet jeans.

I greatly dislike rain.

The weather is gray and sullen, and so am I.