Bits on a rainy day

This has been a rainy week.

On Monday I met Rachel Mander for lunch, and afterwards we walked a little way to get gelato. It was grey and dreary, but sometimes you have to be a radical and disobey the dictates of the weather. I got coffee and she got apricot+thyme and chocolate, and we licked it as we exchanged music (rather, she told me about the fantastic band Harvest)

Yesterday it was rainier - the kind of rain that flicks up from the road when you cycle, and gets your dungarees all wet. When I got to the library, I went straight to the bathroom and stood in my t shirt while I dried my dungarees under the hand dryer. (something I would have never dared to do in Cambridge but SOAS relaxed culture and my desperation meant I'd left any embarrassment behind at my door approximately 30 minutes ago, pre-drenching)

Speaking of rain, I've been reading Gilead, and the narrator recounts this beautiful moment:

“The sun had come up brilliantly after a heavy rain, and the trees were glistening and very wet. On some impulse, plain exuberance, I suppose, the fellow jumped up and caught hold of a branch, and a storm of luminous water came pouring down on the two of them, and they laughed and took off running, the girl sweeping water off her hair and her dress as if she were a little bit disgusted, but she wasn’t. It was a beautiful thing to see, like something from a myth. I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”

This last week I've encountered lots of beautiful moments on this interesting planet:

I've heard a track coach say he'd just become a great-grandfather for the fourth time.

I've seen a path cleared leading to bushes laden with almost-ripe blackberries.

I've tasted a blueberry cheesecake almost too good to be true.

I've heard a man whisper to his tutor, 'It's so beautiful being in a library surrounded by trees.'

I've walked with friends and gazed at the moon.

I've received a wedding invitation, a postcard from a dear friend, and a pair of jeans that make me feel comfortable and adventurous (let's go on adventure, my friend!)

I've stood out in the garden and inhaled morning air and done a little stretch.

After the sun the rain, after the rain the sun...glad that I live am I.