my favorite weather
4-21
The puddles in the sunken brick and the droplets spotting the air were quickly welcomed by my rubber shoes and floating hair as I walked from painting class. I told Hannah my well-rehearsed speech about rain from the standpoint of a west coast romantic. I could have entered and elaborated on multiple snapshots, but I began with me as a mud-loving toddler in the backyard of my first house in San Lorenzo:
“Between our backyard gate and a golfing range, there was a small creek which flooded after rain, with a dotted path of stones leading across to my and my brother’s treasure cove. Whenever the water rushed out of the tunnel into the stream, we’d stick our hands in and find bits of old bikes or shopping carts and collect them in our cove. I’d already be wearing my boots as the clouds blocked sun from our sliding glass door, which happened almost every week, so my purple raincoat also became a fashion staple.”
It was only drizzling now; Hannah adjusted her coat zipper and but kept tucked under her hood. She was used to the environment, her home was constantly wet, but I was the only one who didn’t mind being umbrella-less. Even though I misstepped and drenched my shoe in a small pool, I resumed the story and explained a more recent experience, at my Socal home when thunderstorms were rare.
“Perhaps because I connected rain with the rewards in the stream, I idolized the rain cloud and immortalized it with an obsessive amount of photos, even if they were too high in the atmosphere to actually contain water. One winter, it barely rained at all, so I tried to be content with the deceivingly round and buoyant clouds that only stayed on my camera. But spring came and fulfilled my cravings; as soon as my mom said she could smell the dampness of a storm, and my dad pointed to a mass of green moving towards the coast on a weather radar video, I prepared the buckets, took off my shoes, and hung the camera over my neck. Not only did I document the minor flooding in our flower gardens, and the saturated, candy green hues, but I collected the water itself in buckets, to transfer it to a kettle, then to my teacup. I drank the steeped rain and jumped on my trampoline until my feet were clean and numb from the raw wetness.”
Hannah checked her shoes, which appeared to be grey and soaked, as we stepped on the mat in the entrance area. She grinned slightly, eyebrows raised in thought, and said:
“So you came to love clouds so much you became them.”
“Basically.”
We discussed other possible reasons why people would worship or record the rain until dinner was over and I had to prepare for the next day’s craft sale. Before going to bed at 3am that night, I met up with Hannah again to hunch over a small table and fill out lists of things to bring. She spread out her pile of stickers and presented to me her earring display, while I gleaned her enthusiasm and imagined crowded rows of people lining the streets. I packed up my 18 space-themed felt pins, which had taken about 18 hours total create, the minutes stolen from the middle of sci-fi philosophy class and the long ends of days before falling asleep on my desk. I cut out a stack of business cards, hand drew and labelled each one, double-checking my etsy account before writing down my shop name. I organized my outfit with sunbeams in my eyes: grey tights with a denim dress, reserving a spot on the front pocket to show my favorite pin.
In the morning, I pulled up the shade to a dimly-lit day. It was still early, so I expected the sun was waiting to come and evaporate the overcast as I walked uphill with Hannah. We laid out our merchandise on a tablecloth, which was adhered with tape because of the mild wind, and tucked ourselves behind the table with our hands folded into our laps. Our fingers were getting numb, and my tights were too thin, so we sent a few friends to retrieve blankets and hot water. Before they returned, my black display board began to collect more stars, little dark drops from clouds kept darkening above us.
“I hope this isn’t because of me,” I said, pointing to the growing greyness.
“If it was anyone, it would be you,” Hannah said, half-sarcastically.
I didn’t mind at first, and neither did Hannah, mostly everything was waterproof anyways. But our customers did - unlike my crowded imagination, barely anyone was out shopping today, and I began to feel dispirited. Our display boards took it the worst - they warped as the soaked, defying gravity and bending discontentedly as we tried to press them flat. My handmade business cards also became soggy and sad. I pinched one in the air and it bent depressingly downward and crumpled in a customer’s hand. I thought I’d have some food to cheer up my stomach, since the blanket could only help my legs. But my box of scrambled eggs and hash browns tumbled over and scrambled with a puddle, leaving only chunks of pineapple for my lunch. I was trying to digest my acidic food by tucking in my legs and wrapping the blanket around all of me, when the wind came through and pushed an unfortunate pin in the wet road as well, so I had to unshielded my body and fix everything in place with more tape. Hannah copied me but had frozen up to her voice, only breaking silence to comment on the dismal condition. After an hour of the blanket cocoon state, I couldn’t feel my feet even though they were held in shoes, and had to keep reminding myself of when I had walked through 13° F snow and wind. We tried to huddle by sharing our blankets, but our stomachs had already internalized the cold, shivering uncontrollably.
The curious eyes shielded by rain hoods or hovering hands became fewer than the sparse amount before as our tablecloth grew heavy from the shower. The other tables gradually went bare again, and an organizer of the fair came over with a sorry smile and wide eyes to tell us how the weather reporters had failed, and that the fair was closed. For the first time I wished the radar had been clear of the green mass, and longed for the boring blue skies of the west coast. Weighed by our soggy stuff and disappointment, we returned to 15 West. Hannah encouraged my last bits of positivity by purchasing one of my pins and a flower clip, which she stuck in her hair like the ones I was already wearing. I teased the plants on our heads, telling them to not look so happy when the rain had ruined our day.