The Grit of a Heart on a Rainy Day

It’s going to rain today.

There seems to be this inner sense of conviction for me in making that statement. Here in Arizona, it almost never rains. Literally, we’re lucky if we get a handful of inches every year. We even get this amazingly seductive type of precipitation called virga where the rain nearly gets to the ground, but it’s so hot and so dry that the rain doesn’t quite make it and evaporates before even hitting people’s heads. In some instances, you can witness it from afar. There are precipitation streaks that appear to stop short of where the mountains and valleys meet the sky.

But today, it’s going to rain. Just declaring it brings me some sense of pride, makes my heart leap and my stomach turn in anticipation, much like a child waiting to open the Christmas present they’d been eyeing all morning. Maybe it’s something about my childlike faith that makes it a reality for me even if it doesn’t happen. Maybe it’s a clandestine declaration. Whether it does or doesn’t, I’ll be sitting here in my cubicle, working on whatever task is given to me and I may or may not miss it, if there’s anything to miss. I’m even offset from my boss’s window just enough that I won’t quite be able to see outside unless I stand up. So I may get at least a little physical activity from that repeated procedure, and I will most definitely be questioned and judged by my coworkers, but I really couldn’t care less.

Having this job of fluid mundanity has scared me into believing I’m going to wind up like everyone else. What I mean is that I, a young, single man of 24 years, could very well fall into complacency in life, accept that the pay I make here is much more than I deserve, or anyone my age and demeanor deserves, and that I could get used to having the luxury of only building and growing that number from here, and that in thirty-six to thirty-eight years, I will finally leave this place with a pocket full of money, a wife who is likely as dry and bland as white rice in a forgotten library of encyclopedias (if you even know what an encyclopedia is. Since you’re on WordPress, I assume you have some sort of perspective on it), because she’d have to be in order to fall for the guy I’d have to be at that point, and we’d have two children, a boy and a girl, who grow up to be an engineer and a nurse, respectively. That’s the American Dream to people who don’t intend to do much living in their lifetime.

But days like today, days when it is going to rain, the grit of a heart on a rainy day is revealed. Today, I could write a million and one books and smile at every passer-by. I could put on a white v-neck t-shirt and swim trunks, or perhaps sophies, and dance in puddles. I could bake pistachio bread, take a nap while I wait, and awake to some fresh, warm bread and a cup of hot coffee, then sit on the swinging bench on my back porch reading Tales From the Perilous Realm as I enjoy the finer things life has to offer.

I could write song after song after song until all the melodies blend together and I realize they’re all in the key of C major. I could play “Banana Pancakes,” as would be my moral obligation as a cliché singer-songwriter sort of musician. I could invite two or three close friends over to play monopoly while we watch Up or Despicable Me and eat lucky charms cereal because, deep inside, we wish to remain children for at least a little while longer. You know, like for the rest of our flippin’ lives. They say life is short anyways, might as well make sure we don’t waste time being adults in the short time we’re given.

So yes, today IT IS GOING TO RAIN, and whether everyone else sees it or not, I will be in my cubicle with my yellow polka-dot umbrella as the deluge soaks my papers filled with non-enticing, proprietary information as well as my proprietary polo shirt, and I will be smiling all the broader because with every drop, I’ll be swept farther and farther from here. I’ll likely eventually find myself in a canoe made of something that stunningly resembles my coffee cup, floating down a river of chamomile tea, swept along as the river rises to Venus where everyone knows catfish chase mouseflies around the vineyard where wizard staves grow upside-down for fear of being blown over by the solar winds.

Grit