Rainy Days

I don’t know about you, but I do love a good rainy day. There is something calming about it. I thought retirement would be filled with many such days, but that hasn’t worked out. In fact, most of my days loafing around to read, write, or watch old westerns comes at the expense of my body and the need to rest. I look forward to the day when I can go to the shop and work lazily on some project not designed to gain value to the house. I feel like those days are just around the corner, but I have to get there in one piece. It seems these days I’m doing to much, stressed about time to get it done, and frankly I’m not getting the enjoyment out of doing most of the things anymore. I don’t think it is the work per se, it’s more the stacking up of one after the other with no real end in sight. That’s not entirely true, it just feels that way. The trip to South Africa really hit me in that we did something I really love to do, taking photographs. Not many know that after graduating from high school, I enrolled to attend Colorado Mountain College to study photography. The visions of a life globe-hopping and capturing images to tell a story without caption were my inspiration. It was a dream lived for two weeks trapsing around the bush witnessing wildlife I’ve wanted to check off my bucket list for a long time.

Of course, my dream would have been camped out in the bush and not have been chauffeured around in a three-tiered Land Rover, but the thrill of the hunt and the images of the animals, birds, and sunsets were just as satisfying. I’m back to wanting the nice full frame camera and the trips in the trailer to see America and the glory it beholds. I do want to go on one more trip overseas to see Scotland, Ireland, and England with a stop in Iceland and I’m sure it will be just as awe-inspiring as South Africa. Rainy days have a way of bringing out our deep-rooted dreams and of a life inspired by adventure. With all luck, we’ll be on the road next Spring seeking our adventure and exploration of this great land of ours.

Rainy days inspire reading a good book. I love to read, I love to get lost in the story of the writer and for a moment, be somewhere else and be someone other than the boring me. It is much like acting, you get to be someone you’re not, do things you would never believe for a moment you’d be capable of, and be the hero without ever breaking a sweat and taking any real risk. Stories hold promise, cause imaginations to run wild, and rainy days allow us to forget about the issues of the day and create a calm to come over us. The pattering of raindrops, the occasional thunder, and a freshness in the air. Rainy days are a cleansing of everything around us and to our souls. The promise of new beginnings, clarity from peace of mind, and a renewed joy in our heart.

With the current events of the world and many things right in our own backyard that cause sleepless nights for many suffering from decisions made by our so-called leaders of this country, we could use a few rainy days for the next year. I heard this morning that 2023 has produced just over six hundred mass shootings and we still have two months to go in the year. The ideological and badly misinterpreted Second Amendment rights that has this country divided along political lines as much as LBGTQ rights, a woman’s right to make her own decisions for health, and whether or not this country needs to be made great again by fools who never served anything but themselves. A few good rainy days might be the answer for setting this country on a path of resurrection in smarter decisions benefiting us all and not the minority of idiots that have gained prominence.

Rainy days are days meant to watch old movies that remind us of simpler times. For me it is a western with a classic tale of cowboys and hardships of the American west. Tales without the need of raunchy scenes, instead acting filled with wholesomeness and simple rules to live by. A day to settle into the couch and feel the comfort of knowing each line because I’ve seen most of them too many times to count. Stories where morality and goodness always win, and the good guy always gets the girl.

Rainy days are like a reset on life. They always seem to come at just the right time. I need more and more of them, and I know if they come with enough regularity, I’ll be able to see the world for what it should be instead of what it tries over and over to make us believe it is not. Chaos is all around us and it consumes our ability to live life with clarity and with peace of mind. Rainy days give us hope that we will be ok, and that world order will triumph, and chaos will be suppressed allowing life to get back on track. I can think of so many things in need of a good old rainy day. Let it rain!