Expect thunder storms over the next six hours is what the local weather report stated, in large letters, surrounded by bright blue. In much smaller letters, almost too small to see, in grey, underneath a graphic of the sun obscured by clouds, with lightning bolts in yellow, the local weather warned it might be cloudy with a chance of rain. My eyes, tired from reading two books in three days, mistook rain for pain. One letter making such a difference.
I love rainy days. I have taken walks on such days, getting soaked to the skin, with all of the umbrellas hanging on hooks in the house or my two favorite umbrellas, sitting dry in my car. Just recently, I was walking, looking at all the different types of fencing people have in my neighborhood. I saw a fence I liked and stopped to talk with a young mother, who said the fence came with the house. I told her I was trying to replace our fence that had been damaged during Hurricane Sandy, but the exact fencing was no longer available.
She rolled her eyes when I mentioned the hurricane and picked up her one-year-old son, balancing him on her hip, as she picked a few blackberries, feeding them to the boy. She said, "We had just moved in here and learned the hard way that the roof leaked. The entire roof." As we commiserated, it began to rain lightly and she moved to pick up a few toys and a towel on the ground, next to the inflatable kiddie pool her son had been playing in when I first arrived. We exchanged names and she thanked me for stopping by as the rain came down faster and heavier, with distant rumbles.
I wasn't that far from home, so I decided to run until I realized the cool rain felt good. Birds were still chirping and flying; butterflies were going from flower to flower, nonchalant. So I walked in my new sneakers and then, seeing no one outside, I danced down the block, not even caring if anyone saw me from their windows. That was the night my computer died, however that was not what caused the pain the local weather warned me of, in small grey letters.