Punk Weather
Punk weather, that’s how I think of it. The hills in the rain; oddly that’s my happy place. There's something rather hypnotic about being in the hills when it rains. Raincoat on. Rain pounding your hood and running down your nose. You get a feeling that you are part OF nature, not just using it.
It's almost as if the rain is saying "hey, I'm going to get on with my day, but you crack on, pal". It's not putting on a show, is it? It isn't being pretty. It isn't putting on a show. It. Just. Is.
It also reminds me that we are at OUR most memorable, meaningful and beautiful when we are who we really are too. Our true selves. Rain and all.
Rain is my reason to be cheerful. A reminder to be authentic and unapologetic, sometimes unpopular if you have to be. (It also means fewer people are out and about, so simultaneously appeals to my hipster nature of exclusivity): I don't want the Coldplay of weather. I want the real deal; at times emotional and angry weather. Punk weather.
From a young age I delighted in going into the garden during a rain shower with my bright blue rain mac, and letting slugs crawl over me. As I’ve grown up, I still enjoy being caught in a heavy April shower, and cycling back to the purpose of my rambling piece “reasons to be cheerful”, I leave you with three of my greatest reasons involving rain.
Being on a mountain, alone, in the rain. Now I was fortunate to grow up within eyesight of the Lake district - albeit one across a bay and the coastline of the North West. And so my formative years were spent in the hills with my parents most Sundays we could. Some days it rained (in the Lake District the clue is in the name). As years went by we spent many days hacking up the side of a mountain, and whilst I’m sure I often didn’t enjoy it then, I love it now. But nothing is as wonderfully beautiful for me, as standing on a hillside, with a raincoat on, with rain pouring over me. Maybe it’s because it isolates you, but truth be told I don’t want to analyze it too much. It’s just that the rain is what makes that moment special.
Petrichor. That’s the name of that wonderful smell when it rains after a dry spell. It occurs when bacteria in soil called actinomycetes get released into the air, or when rain hits plants containing certain oils. Cool, hey?!
3. Being in a tent when it’s raining. This simple pleasure combines three of my favourite things. The outdoors, camping, and rain. But the reason I finish with this is best explained by an anecdote from about 10 years ago. Work was incredibly stressful: the agency I worked for at the time, which at its height employed over 100 people and turned over millions of pounds, was in financial difficulty. The business which was all I had known since leaving University was threatening to dump me as fast as it had scooped me up. Yet, as I lay awake in the early hours of the morning, in a tent, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a layer of canvas over me, and a mat beneath me, and some basic supplies, I felt overwhelmed with joy. The almost meditative pitter-patter on the tent, and of the rain on the leaves of the trees and forest floor around me, left me with the notion that if I could be happy in that moment, with nothing but the bare necessities, then what was stopping me from being happy the rest of the time? The rest was just stuff, so all I really needed to be cheerful was a roof over my head, and the everyday “humdrum” of nature relentlessly moving through the seasons. I’ve been grateful for that moment ever since.
So rain is never inclement in my view. Rain brings life to the trees, which in turn bring us oxygen, but it will also always remind me of that time in a tent, and of being five years old, in a garden in the rain, with nothing but a rubber coat and a few slugs.
Nothing I’ve ever bought has given me more pleasure than those things.
I’m completely and utterly myself in the rain, at peace and my true self. So being outside and in the rain might sound like a bit of a weird reason to be cheerful, but punk weather is absolutely my reason to be cheerful. You should try it some time.
