Save it for a Rainy Day

daily gratitude list 5.2.23

I’m grateful for yet another rainy day. I’m grateful for the May flowers. I’m grateful for seeing what I couldn’t. I’m grateful for the calm and ease, even when thing are uncertain. I’m grateful for quiet mornings and coffee. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Before I launch off, I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you about the “Anyone Anywhere” Meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Tonight at 7pm!

Here in New York, it has now rained for 27 consecutive days. Actually, I made that up, it’s rained a lot here this spring, not a Noah-amount to be sure, but plenty of rain. The 5-gallon buckets I keep on the balcony to water the garden are overflowing. Many people, our own

Miss Sober Jane

included, apparently don’t like the rain so much. I very much like rainy days. A lot.

One of my earliest memories is of a rainy day. It would have been when I was not quite four years old, and we were living in Valparaiso, Indiana in a drafty old house on Michigan Avenue. I just remember feeling safe and warm and cozy while the rain poured down outside. Weirdly, even though we were confined to the house by the rain coming down in sheets, I felt free. I’m not sure why that would be one of the feelings that comes up when I let that memory sit a little. But the feeling is unmistakably freedom and anticipation, it’s the same feeling I get when I go into a library—all of the possibilities just set me a-tingling.

The love of rainy days may have congealed during my days on the Safety Patrol at Ernest Horn Elementary in Iowa City. The TBD of 1972-3 had a fair amount of swagger: He was a kick-ass Webelos (headed for the Boy Scouts at 11), carried newspapers for the Des Moines Register and was already Captain of the Safety Patrol.

That last one was the most important: On rainy days, we got to wear these gigantic, heavy duty, yellow rain slickers that said “Safety Patrol” on the back.

Read what you want into this: I loved rainy days, wearing that slicker and proceeding to do my Captain-ly duties, inspecting each of the six posts and marking the individual safety patrols as present and accounted for. I rode a yellow Schwinn Sting-Ray with a glittery banana seat, a sissy bar (for popping wheelies) and the three-speed gearstick dangerously mounted on the tube just in front of the seat. I had a clipboard and always carried candy.¹ John H., who manned the important and most visible post: the crossing right near the school entrance where Koser Avenue ended, would snap off a pretty solid salute when I dismounted my bike. I liked that quite a bit. I also listened to this Partridge Family song a lot back then (I owned the album--did I mention the paper route money?) and it not only formed my outlook on romance, but deepened my love of the rain ("And I know more than me she loved the rain"):

Those are my rainy day antecedents and my love of rainy days has only grown over the years.² I should probably add the part about being a dog in the last life, too. I’m not sure how I know this, to be fair, I’m not 100% sure this is even true, but I’m pretty convinced I was a Labrador Retriever in a previous life, maybe even the last one. Why am I convinced of this? I’m not particularly furry, it has more to do with disposition and outlook. I’m friendly, open, enthusiastic, very goofy, honest and sweet looking but capable of great deceptions, and pretty content to hang out and see what happens next—just like a Lab. Oh, and I like getting the back of my head scratched, right by the ears and I love rainy days. I actually refer to days like this: windy, cold, blustery, rainy, as “Lab Weather.” I view it as my weather.

Why? That’s a pretty good question. I think rainy days are somewhat reflective of my depressive qualities, I think rainy days might be easier for shy, awkward people who don’t always understand other people, don’t seem to get what everyone else gets so effortlessly. Moving through that world was always a bit bewildering to me and I guess part of the attraction to the rain was that it keeps the crowds down.³ Somehow, I felt more pressure to be social, to be outwardly happy on beautiful, sunny days.

Part of the appeal to me was also the toughness involved. Everyone else was cowering at home, cadging mom and dad for a ride to school, I was out in that maelstrom wearing my bad-ass yellow rain slicker. I was not afraid of the rain. I’m not afraid of any inclement weather, in fact, bring some more on and I’ll show you just how tough I am.

Rainy days removed some of the shame from my pursuits and interests. On rainy days, I was free to read my WWII books or play the wargames I bought with those DMR-dollars, or sit in the basement and write stories on the old typewriter down there, things I’d be embarrassed to do in front of friends or other people. Rainy days were liberating. I was free on rainy days. I could be me on rainy days.

I think some of those same forces were at work during my illustrious drinking career, they certainly helped form this alcoholic as a young man. I don’t think liking rainy days is a symptom of addiction or a marker of trouble on the way. For me, some of the same things that made me crave the isolation and alone-ness that rainy days generated, made me crave a glass of Sauvignon Blanc at the end of a dark bar somewhere. And even better if it was raining.

I think the trickiest part of the whole “Acceptance” thing is the part where you have to “accept” yourself. I realize I’ve been running from myself since before I was ten years old. There’s not some deep, dark elementary school crime that kept me on the run all those years, it was just my own sense of “apartness,” of never really feeling like I fit in and the shame that generates.

My recovery has involved the re-discovery of that bad-ass, very pirate-y ten year old. The one who always had money in his pocket and more importantly, a plan (and also candy). I hate the phrase “inner child” and recoil at the prospect of some kind of reunion with him, them, whatever.

The real point is that was me.

How I was then was a pretty true reflection of the person I think I was intended to be. Not a permanent ten year old, or even an already-drinking seventeen year-old, but just the plain old essence of me. Recovering that, recovering me, has simply involved accepting who I am and who I was and letting those two finally hang out together without shame or judgment or fear. That doesn’t seem like much or that hard, but it fueled a four-decade drinking career for this alcoholic.

I have a lot of rain gear. My higher power definitely was involved in the invention of Gore-Tex. Naturally, I also love umbrellas. You very lovely readers have heard my too-often references to a certain swanky umbrella that I relish carrying. The one I purchased at the unbelievably swanky umbrella store in Paris. An experience that included having coffee with the proprietress/umbrella designer and her Lab, who spends his days in the shop with her. Is that perfect or what?

She showed me this beautiful umbrella, a handle made of mahogany, thick, waterproof, old fashioned canvas and silver inlays in the handle. I promised to ignore the bromide about opening an umbrella indoors-it’s not unlucky, it’s necessary! It’s an umbrella that would be a classy accessory in any era, Belle Epoque on. I deliberately avoided asking how much it was, I knew it was too much, and I live in constant fear of losing it. But on rainy days, when I’m walking with it, well, there aren’t many better things than that. I’m able to go anywhere, stay mostly dry, hidden under the umbrella (again with the isolation) and free. Also, I think I look pretty swanky myself when I have it with me.

It’s perched in the umbrella stand I found at a thrift store next to the super creepy, probably haunted dog-head umbrella I also found at a thrift store. Note: If you have an umbrella stand, you need more than one umbrella. There have been requests for a picture of the “swanky umbrella,” here it is⁴:

I love rainy days. I always have. There is nothing better than a long walk in the park on a really rainy day—I guess that was Sunday. I’m free on rainy days, free to be the person I was always meant to be. And I have a swanky umbrella that makes all of that even better.

1. I was awash in paper route dollars. Like the song says, “Im a dangerous man with a little money in my pocket.”

2. This may actually be my favorite rainy day song and was the source of today’s title.

3. Tourist Hint: You’re in NYC and it’s a rainy day and you think, “Hmmm, it’s really rainy, going to the Met or MOMA would be perfect.” You’re correct, but keep in mind about 45% of the residents of Manhattan are having that exact same thought.

4. Whatever you do, don’t look directly into the yellow eyes of the creepy dog…Maybe I should have put this in the body instead of a footnote?