Rain Rain, it's OK. We can work some other day.

The day has finally arrived. The holidays have officially passed and we have run out of excuses to put off getting back to work. Except...well...it was kind of rainy today. 8)

I really love rain. Sadly, my least favorite kind of rain is Winter rain - simply enough because during the Winter, rain should always be snow. Summer rain brings a nice reprieve from the heat, but ultimately leaves things muggy. Fall rain is frustrating because I'm usually trying to get as many motorcycle rides in as I can before it gets so cold that motorcycling becomes more pragmatic than enjoyable.

As you may have guessed, Spring rain is my favorite. Spring rain's main job is to breathe new life into the Earth, who has been starved for life since the last of Fall's beauty handed the baton off to Winter's icy grip. You can walk in the rain anytime, but it feels best in Spring. In Pennsylvania, where I grew up, Spring rain also washes away the dregs of the dirty and unsightly snow that somehow missed the memo about Winter being over.

I think I started appreciating the rain in high school when I came to this realization. Rain affects us all...no one is invulnerable. I may have first noticed this during track season. My competition all seemed to lose confidence as soon as the rain hit and this did naught but bolster mine. I won some great races by some pretty large margins thanks to the effects of the rain.

I'm not really involved in a lot of competition anymore - I mostly compete against myself - so the rain seems to have taken on a new role in my life. I'm not sure I can articulate this, but the rain has become a source of comfort now. It has a way of numbing the pain of loneliness. It has a way of saying, "take it easy, man - it'll be all right." It has a way of making a run feel less like obligated training and more like an adventure. I especially love how it has a way of washing away distorted expectations (both good & bad) that we have of all things, so that for just a moment we have an uninhibited glimpse of reality...I could go on.

I have an aluminum roof over the patio right outside my bedroom window. There are few things as soothing as falling asleep to the peaceful sound of a steady, gentle rain falling right outside your window. It sort of makes me feel like I can just keep exhaling all night without ever having to suffer even the slight inconvenience of inhaling.

And isn't there something about the rain that makes it seem like none of us should actually be at work, but rather at home, in our sweats, on the couch, with a significant other (or even just the dog or cat), maybe a candle or two burning, watching as many hours of our favorite DVD's as will fit before we drift off into that peaceful slumber only the rain can induce?

Perhaps you've taken a trip somewhere on a plane and left on a rainy day. You take off in an atmosphere of gloom. After a steep ascent of a few thousand feet, all of a sudden visibility from your window dwindles so much you can't even see the wing anymore, but maybe the intermittent blink of one of the lights on it. But then, just as you're about to lose interest in looking out the window because you can't actually see anything, something glorious happens. In the blink of an eye, the plane bursts through the cloud cover and you see the sun smiling down on its friends the rain clouds. We get myopic so quickly during bouts of rain that we forget the rain is good, and the sun is right behind the clouds perfectly content with sharing the sky's center stage.

*sigh* (one of relaxation...not frustration) No point to this I guess, or moral to the story. Maybe you've found that we have something in common, or maybe better yet, you get to see the brighter side of the rain.

Now, back to work for REAL...although, they're calling for more rain tomorrow. 8)