Rain Dance

There are a handful of memories that I have from my childhood that I hold on to. Some of them, my favorite memories, are random and otherwise insignificant; A day at the movies with my mom and sister, an evening catching fire flies with my cousins in our front yard, and one with just my sister and I, playing in the rain in oversized tee-shirts and bare feet.

My parents had gotten a divorce around the time of the last one, and my sister and I were spending the summer with my dad in Ohio. The rain became something of a comforting memory of my first home, those soppy muggy days where it felt like the sky simply opened and dumped all of it’s feelings onto the houses and into the earth. Being back in that house that I grew up in those summers, it was like being in a dream. Our family was changed. The house from my childhood always smelled and looked the same, like a sturdy frame encasing a broken picture.

My sister and I went outside that day in our father’s old tee shirts and laughed and danced under the shower of quarter sized water droplets. Despite the crumbling, crusty surface of our family sphere, we latched onto each other and allowed the water to drench us, giggling and dancing for what felt like hours.

That is the glory of childhood; Effortless resilience.

It rained yesterday in Santa Cruz, it rained a lot for a long time. Zoe thought that it was a school day, so she dressed herself and went outside to wait for us to pile in to the car. Beau followed in his pajamas, it was all I could do to wrangle him back inside to get some boots and a coat on him. I could see from the look on her face how much she was enjoying the rain-it’s only happened a handful of times since we moved here a year ago.

It wasn’t long before they were jumping in puddles and giggling, sopping wet from head to toe and loving every single minute of it.

“This is the best day of my life!” she exclaimed, running down the sidewalk with her mouth agape trying to catch a few drops.

It didn’t occur to me until then, when that day from my own childhood flashed before my eyes and I remembered feeling that same joy and happiness within a single moment. Anything and everything is possible.

Complete freedom.

In a world of inconsistency and imperfection, these are the moments that remind me that life is really about the present.