Rain in the Summertime

This is a feel-good song, and it came to me for the first time a couple of weeks ago. My kids had been fighting, and there didn't seem to be any end in sight. The next thing I knew, a big storm rolled in, and with it, a cleansing summer rain that almost immediately had my kids frolicking outside together, getting soaked, huge smiles on their faces:

I love to feel the RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME
I love to feel the rain on my face
I love to feel the RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME
I love to feel the rain on my face

What a quintessential childhood moment. I savored it at the time, and thought it would probably be a good idea for me to allow myself to get soaked more often in my adult life, but it's so often inconvenient when one has to meet obligations like cleaning up the kitchen or going to work, which it's not fun to do wet.

This song came back today as I rose to deal with some flash flooding issues. My son's away at summer camp this week, and my love is about to take off for his next phase of life camp, and as the rain poured down and into my basement, I thought how desperately I've wanted to stop my loved ones, and myself, from getting uncomfortably wet, literally and figuratively, and how truly futile that effort is in the end.

I didn't realize it, but this song also has some lyrics that are apropos of an issue I've been having with my legs. I've got a sore adductor, which has taken me away from doing my marathon training, and that's kinda stressin' me out. I feel like in rendering me unable to run, the Universe is trying to tell me that my attempt to do just what The Alarm is singing about here:

And then I run 'til the breath tears my throat
'Til the pain hits my side
As if I run fast enough
I can leave all the pain and the sadness behind

...is just as futile as trying to stay dry in a flash flood.

Sometimes, it's about surrender:

I love to feel the RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME
I love to feel the rain on my face
I love to feel the RAIN IN THE SUMMERTIME
I love to feel the rain on my face
(I love to feel the rain on my face)
(In the summertime)

And with that realization, I'm making myself a promise -- that the next time a huge storm rolls in, offering to wash over me as I let go and allow it to soak me as it does the earth -- I'm gonna accept the offer.