When a friend and I were exchanging our usual pleasantries this morning, he mentioned he was enjoying the rain and wind, and for some unknown reason in the moment, that struck a chord with me, this idea of enjoying the rain. The rain – what so many of us often lament and disregard, refusing to pause to acknowledge its gifts and messages.
When we’re accosted with a steady stream of storms, day after day getting swept up in life’s often chaotic doom and gloom, we find ourselves wishing the weather had a return policy, as if exchanging downpours for sun were as easy as summoning some UPS-like sky god to haul off our unwanted returns.
We’re an impatient species, detrimentally addicted to instant gratification.
We desperately long for the destination and forsake the journey. We want the dopamine hit and the serotonin high of fast-food level results. At times, it seems we want to Amazon Prime our lives. While we may see points A and B, we have little to no patience for the steps in between. We’ve done this so much that we’ve become a world of spoiled Veruca Salts: we want what we want, and we want it now.
All of it reminded me of something my five-year-old daughter Lilly said to me once. She often says very profound things, likely without realizing it, imparting little nuggets of wisdom here and there when I least expect (but inevitably need the most). She has inspired countless poems and one day, I’m sure I’ll publish a book of Lillyisms, but on that particular day, she said to me:
“When there’s rain, you just gotta be in it.” – Lilly
Her words resonated deeply, enough for me to jot them down in the moment onto the notes app in my phone, knowing they would one day (on a cloudy, gray one like today), find their home here in these very paragraphs.
It’s incredible what we can glean from such tiny humans when we really tune in to listen.
We associate rain with melancholy, sadness, grief, tears. But for every drop the sky cries, there is something beautiful that blooms because of it.
Being in a constant state of growth is not sustainable. Like the birthing process, we must contract before we expand, and it is every moment of rain that makes this expansion possible. Rain asks us to slow down. Rain asks us to move inward. Rain asks us to stop and take notice.
For every personal storm I’ve weathered, it has led me one step closer to who I was always meant to become. Little by little, it has washed away what (and who) wasn’t meant to stay, eroded the beliefs and ideas that were never mine, and allowed me to birth new versions of myself and grow exponentially into someone who now freely speaks her mind and passionately pursues her desires.
Try as we might to escape those moments of pain, the crushing heaviness, those “can’t see the sky for the clouds” kind of days, they are a necessary part of life. We live in a world with incredible polarity and contrast: light and dark, good and evil, love and hate. Were it not for the rain, we would never appreciate sun (and the iconic banger of a song “Mr. Blue Sky” would sound entirely different). We take our lessons from this duality, and it enriches us.
Why can’t we make space for the rain? Why can’t we sit in that storm and extract her wisdom and magic? Why can’t we dance at the same time we cry? We must be willing to swap the lens with which we view the world from who we were to one of who we wish to become. We must be willing to look directly at the rain. We must be willing to pause and as Lilly suggests, just be in it.
What I love most about what she said, aside from the fact that she said it at all, is that she is teaching me, just as the rain is schooling all of us.
Sometimes we drown in the moment while others find us submerged head to toe in life’s muck, but if we surrender to what is without trying to change it, if we learn to swim and lift our eyes towards those beautiful, swollen clouds and see them for what they are, we find that we always come back up. We surface to find something new, illuminated by the return of sun with a brilliance we never would have seen otherwise.
THE MAGIC OF RAIN by Maverick L. Malone
right as rain
the rippling reflection of violet and magenta crepe myrtle trees
in sepia pools and puddles on concrete
an inverted memory made tangible in her whisper
liquid sagacity on skin sinking in
a lullaby hush of spirit
a thrush of benevolent songs fine tuned along the hoods of cars and pavement
the congregation of crystal dewdrops resting on pews of verdant grass, clover, ferns
illuminating the sanctitude of their purity
the compassionate way such rain brings a serene surrender
asks only for your ears
your eyes
your heart
a cleansing
of every shard of sorrow
every grain of grief
a reprieve
a hope
a healing
write as rain
🌊🔥