Rainy morning

It’s raining this morning.  Small rivers run down sidewalks and across pavement, rimmed with bright yellow banks of pollen dust.  I’m not sure what exactly is blooming so quickly after the chilly weather, but I am sure that it’s doing it very well.  So far it isn’t enough to bother my allergies, but I’m sure that day is coming.

I step over a river to go through the gate and into work, trying to keep my shoes dry.  I hold my umbrella over my head, angled to the slant of the rain.  It’s brightly colored polka-dots coordinate wonderfully with the monochromatic polka dots on my skirt.  An elbow on my umbrella is broken and it hangs down limply like a broken wing.  Water drips off the edges of my umbrella and I hope the book in my purse isn’t getting wet.

Wind picks up my hair and blows it into my face and I have to stop and brush it out of my eyes before I keep walking.  I’m running a little late because I had to stop for a train, but if I walk half-blind, I’ll step into a puddle.  My shoes are wet already, soaking through to my socks.  When I get up to my desk, I’ll have to set them in front of the space heater under my desk for a while.

It’s a dark morning, this close to Daylight Savings, and I’m sure this rain is going to last all day.  It’s good for the grass.  I can see the colors changing when I drive through the marsh—a hint of pale green creeping into the golden and gray grass growing there.  A fire went through there earlier this week, burning a portion of the dry grass.  I suspect it was started by a careless commuter’s cigarette, but I’m hesitant to say that it’s a bad thing.  The marsh burns every year and I think it’s part of the natural cycle of that environment.

But there won’t be any burning this morning.  Only mud puddles from this rain.

There was a flower blooming in the flowerbed outside my house this morning.  It wasn’t there yesterday, but suddenly this morning:  Flower!  I hope this rain helps bring on more blossoms.  I really need to get out and cut down last year’s pampas grass and the branches off the crepe myrtle trees, but it’s not going to happen today.

I reach the door of my building, collapse my umbrella and shake off the rain.  My toes are cold from the damp and I’m looking forward to that space heater.  It’s going to be a long day.  I’m running on too little sleep and I have a lot of complicated work to finish and several meetings to attend.  My mother in law will be at the house when I get home.

But for right now, I’m going to go clock into work and go make myself some warm tea and oatmeal.  Put my shoes and toes in front of the space heater.  Hang my wounded umbrella on the wall.

And get started on my day.