Praising The Rain

Monday morning as work I pulled into work, there was a light rain sprinkling down, pattering on the roof of the car.  It might have rained two weeks ago, but we were out of the state, so for me this is the first rain in about ten weeks. 

I got out.  I hadn't brought a jacket.  I held my hands up and received the gift of the rain--tiny touches blessing my upturned palms.  The overcast sky hid the sun behind a veil of grey.  The rain dampened my hair, beaded on my glasses, and darkend the shoulders of my blue shirt.  I'd be inside soon enough and could praise the rain for the brief moment that I'd be out in it.  And besides, Real Oregonians walk through the rain with their heads held high.

Ahead of me, there was a woman, hunched over in her dark brown coat, with one hand clutching the coat's hood over her head.  I thought we must look a study in contrasts; she closed up around herself, me opened out like water lilly.  

We made for the same entrance, and I wondered if maybe she could see my aspect reflected in the glass doors.  As she opened the door, she turned and pulled her hood back; it was one of my co-workers.  "I could feel you getting into the rain behind me," she said, and we laughed.