Rainy Day Woman

Remember the rainy days of childhood when your parents wouldn't let you go out to play? That bored, restless caged-in feeling? That's how I've been feeling lately, only I've become my own inner parent, forbidding myself to venture out except for small trips to the grocery. This is our third day of rain or is it the fourth or fifth? After a while, the days begin to blur into each other -- like raindrops streaking down the windows to condense into steam. Yes, I've definitely become a bit myopic. I need to venture forth into the wild wet world. But it's a cold miserable kind of rain interspersed with gusts of wind, not conducive to long strolls.

I remember other years when I walked alone in the rain and it was marvelous. In the Bay Area, this is the greenest time of year and when you go walking under an umbrella, you feel like you've discovered an enchanted territory that belongs only to you. One year, umbrella-less, I hiked in the Pinnacles. I wandered for hours by myself, rain-drenched but happy. Of course, I was tripping on acid, besides being 30 years younger.

Other years I explored Golden Gate Park, overgrown and jungle-like, where I stumbled over mysterious pieces of broken antique stones or wandered down unmarked paths to encounter street people taking shelter from the rain under leafy shrubs. Since I've moved to Oakland I've often walked in the Morcom Rose Garden, past rose bushes cut back to bare stubs in mid-winter. Or I've walked by Lake Merritt, rain beating on my umbrella as I watched the birds cavort.