A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
I went running in the rain today.
It’s been raining here for two straight days. At time it’s been light, at times a deluge, but always raining. I didn’t go running yesterday. Today I didn’t go until later in the day to see if I could find a crack in the weather about an hour long. Then I got wrapped up in some things, and missed my window. The clouds were heavy and dark in the west. I couldn’t see into the valley because the wall of rain was already that thick and close. I started to feel the need to defy something. I needed to defy the weather. I needed to defy Martinique and it’s tendency to defeat me in things I try to do.
The clouds got thicker. I could feel the wind start to pick up. I put on my shoes. Droplets started falling, I walked out the door. I breathed in the water and air and started running down the road.
Every step I took it seemed like the rain started coming down more and after a few minutes it was pouring and I was soaked. I didn’t care though. I started conjuring memories of the 10-miler Mark and I ran in the
pouring down rain. I started remembering when my mother and I were in Tours, France the summer after my junior year of high school and it was in the middle of the trip and everything seemed so hard. I was missing people and feeling like I’d never be able to speak French and I felt sad. It started to rain and I just decided I needed to go out in it. So I went for a run.
Something about the rhythm of running, breathing, escaping from my room was exactly what I needed. And the fact that the rain was falling so hard and it was so a time I should not have been running, it made it ever better. I just kept going. My shoes were filled with water and I was soaked to the skin, cars and buses were splashing me and normally that would have made me mad but I didn’t care. I just needed to run. I wish I could have run forever and I wish there hadn’t been any cars on the road, but I got what I needed. I got out, I moved. I defied the weather’s attempt to stop me and to make me feel bad. I defied Martinique. Take THAT.
I was running thinking that I just needed to do something hard that wasn’t teaching. Something that’s hard that I knew I could do. Harder than what I have been doing at home and at school, trying to teach these kids with nothing to go on. Sometimes things just pile up on me and I need to get rid of it somehow. This is how I did it I guess. One of my favorite things to do is curl up with a book and watch the rain, but only if I feel I’ve conquered it by going out in it first. It felt good to get out. It felt like I was proving to myself that I can do things here. It’ll be okay. In closing:
Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
It’s been raining here for two straight days. At time it’s been light, at times a deluge, but always raining. I didn’t go running yesterday. Today I didn’t go until later in the day to see if I could find a crack in the weather about an hour long. Then I got wrapped up in some things, and missed my window. The clouds were heavy and dark in the west. I couldn’t see into the valley because the wall of rain was already that thick and close. I started to feel the need to defy something. I needed to defy the weather. I needed to defy Martinique and it’s tendency to defeat me in things I try to do.
The clouds got thicker. I could feel the wind start to pick up. I put on my shoes. Droplets started falling, I walked out the door. I breathed in the water and air and started running down the road.
Every step I took it seemed like the rain started coming down more and after a few minutes it was pouring and I was soaked. I didn’t care though. I started conjuring memories of the 10-miler Mark and I ran in the
pouring down rain. I started remembering when my mother and I were in Tours, France the summer after my junior year of high school and it was in the middle of the trip and everything seemed so hard. I was missing people and feeling like I’d never be able to speak French and I felt sad. It started to rain and I just decided I needed to go out in it. So I went for a run. Something about the rhythm of running, breathing, escaping from my room was exactly what I needed. And the fact that the rain was falling so hard and it was so a time I should not have been running, it made it ever better. I just kept going. My shoes were filled with water and I was soaked to the skin, cars and buses were splashing me and normally that would have made me mad but I didn’t care. I just needed to run. I wish I could have run forever and I wish there hadn’t been any cars on the road, but I got what I needed. I got out, I moved. I defied the weather’s attempt to stop me and to make me feel bad. I defied Martinique. Take THAT.
I was running thinking that I just needed to do something hard that wasn’t teaching. Something that’s hard that I knew I could do. Harder than what I have been doing at home and at school, trying to teach these kids with nothing to go on. Sometimes things just pile up on me and I need to get rid of it somehow. This is how I did it I guess. One of my favorite things to do is curl up with a book and watch the rain, but only if I feel I’ve conquered it by going out in it first. It felt good to get out. It felt like I was proving to myself that I can do things here. It’ll be okay. In closing:
Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Comments