Running in the rain is my eating spaghetti.

this afternoon i went running in the rain.
notice i didn’t say “i went running and got caught in the rain”. No.
I went running. In the rain.

And why, you ask, would i do a silly thing like that?
I’ll conjure my best Garth Algar for the answer: I wanted to.

And boy was that a good idea! I haven’t felt that free or happy in…too long.

exhibit A: happy little drowned rat.

The adventure started out small. I was sitting here enjoying my half-day friday at home, all my electronic entertainments unplugged for fear of lightning (my boss lost a TV last week, folks. Mother Nature shan’t be messed with.) And I noticed the pelting rain out my kitchen window and thought, I want to go to there.

A couple times this year I’ve been hanging out with other people during rainstorms and said, “let’s go play in the rain! I want to go play in the raiiiiin” sounding much like Amy Poehler when she impersonates a little kid. But the general reaction would always be something like, “No. you crazy.”

Today I was by myself. Alllll by myself. So I decided what the hell, self. Let’s go play in the rain.
(Being the responsible kid that i am, i did toss on some waterproof running clothes first. and put a towel by the back door.)

and i noticed something nifty about pelting rain: when you aren’t trying with all your might to stay dry, pelting rain is actually quite nice. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t dousing like a shower even. Just refreshing. And unusual.

I noticed something else: a rainbow in my neighbor’s yard. Not in the sky above my neighbor’s yard, but an honest-to-god rainbow IN my neighbor’s yard. Floating just above the grass under her clothesline.

I noticed a third thing: never has my (our) garden smelled so good. The little plants have made it. through hot days and my opposite-of-green thumbs (what’s the opposite of green…red? red thumbs?*) and a couple of dine-and-dash groundhogs.

That’s the thing about living things, huh? You give them what they need (sunlight. water. a fence to keep the groundhogs at bay) and against all odds, they grow.

So after my romp around the back yard, I decided, well, okay. Let’s go running too.
Because it’s been too damn hot to go running lately.
Because no one’s here to tell me not to, or warn me to be careful, or make me feel silly.

And it, too, was quite nice. Instead of avoiding puddles I sought them out. (Puddles are warm. Gross.) And I felt FREE and HAPPY like I haven’t in quite a while. (I said that already, didn’t I?)

Incidentally, I’m reading Eat, Pray, Love again right now.
Partly because the movie comes out soon. (yay)
Partly because I’m in a not-so-secret blog love affair with the idea of Elizabeth Gilbert.
Partly because…I’ll have what she’s having. The joy and the centering and the prioritizing self and the connecting with spirit. (and the eating gelato. lots of the eating gelato.)

Yesterday a friend gave me the good advice that it couldn’t hurt for me to do as EG did. While I’m trying to get myself together, I should find a way to eat spaghetti too.

Maybe running in the rain is my eating spaghetti. It’s at least a good place to start.

*yes. red is the opposite of green. i may or may not have used my sharpies  to form a color wheel that answered this question.