Irrational (and somewhat joyful)

It is probably clear to anyone who has read my last couple of posts or been around me for the past month that it is nearly impossible for me to be rational about rain. I know all that stuff about how we need rain to make things grow, and as a lover of food, I really do want things to grow and not cost me a fortune. And here in Texas, we could have weeks of rain and still need more.

 
But it isn't so much the rain, but the feeling of getting beat down. I don't think I have seasonal affective disorder, but I confess I have found it harder to be happy in the winter. Much of that is related to childhood. Rain and cold keeps kids in, and I was obsessed with sports as a teenager. They also cancelled what I looked forward to most. (Sometimes I forget that during lousy weather, I enjoyed reading the most.)

breathing in the first
of spring's sun
i thought: even country
music cannot bring
me down -- then
someone posted about copperheads

This feeling -- of real anger and disappointment-- is silly, I admit, for an adult. The rain has not prevented me from walking, or kept me from most of the other activities I enjoy or care about deeply. It has made a few things harder, but harder is not impossible, and without challenges, we do not grow. As I have tried to think through this, I have also had to admit perhaps the accoutrements of my walks and the confluence of the other "rains" of Life have most gotten me down. In short, I am not good at adjusting my expectations of the world around me, even the world I cannot control.

I've laughed a little, when I've walked the past few days, at the swarms of gnats the freezes were supposed to kill, thinking, "So what good did we get out of that?" But as I said, to be rational is sometimes hard, particularly when hurting or afraid. Don't get me started on my feelings about snakes.

I'm not sorry for my irrationality--usually. I'm humbled and embarrassed that I let so much get to me, and that I pained others around me with my bitching instead of finding reasonable solutions. And yet, I also am hoping that the stupid wonder I find seeing the eye of a bird and the flight of a bee will transfer to the sweet music of rain, bright blankets of snow, and the swirl of grey skies.