Down Time

 

 

It’s nice to have a day given over to some down time, and rainy days present that to me, as long as it’s not a string of rainy days.  Today it’s raining at a gentle spring like pace, no wind, and just the twittering of birds and the plip plip of raindrops acting as the soundtrack for my afternoon. It’s a good time for reading, baking muffins, and writing a letter or two, as well as trying to work on a story (not getting very far!), writing a blog post, and sipping tea on the couch while making up poems in my head.  It’s a nice bit of respite from the hurrying that sunny warm days seem to spark in me.  I took the umbrella and walked up and down the driveway, just to hear the rain falling on the bonnet of the sunny yellow protective device. (There! I’ve described my umbrella without using the word!  Haha! Just a little challenge to myself.)  I grew up walking in the rain as my father had the car at work and we only had one car as most families did at that time.  We lived in town so the schools were in walking distance and umbrellas, rain boots or shoe coverings (rubbers, we called them), and good rain coats were part of our back to school gear every year. If we wanted to go to a friend’s house we walked, or if we needed something from the grocery store or post office we walked there too.  It was just part of life and we didn’t complain too much since there really wasn’t anything you could do about it besides stay home and that just wasn’t what we did.  I don’t really like walking in the rain too much anymore, but maybe I should try it this spring and summer.  I’ll think about it!   At any rate, I slipped out onto the deck and took a couple pictures of the raindrops clinging to my wisteria, which reminded me of little crystals hung there.  It’s hard to get a picture that does them justice, but I think the lighting was pretty cool anyway. It made me realize that even if the clouds are covering the sun today, it is still higher in the sky and so you need more clouds to make the rainy day as gloomy as it would have been even a month ago, and that’s a good thing!