Breath

Saturday the wind careened in, exultant and sultry as if loosed from the chambers of some secret mistress. The thunderous wrath of her jilted husband that rumbled unexpectedly in the late afternoon finally spooked the wind on to points east. Like grief reaching a crescendo, the rain increased in intensity for the next hour until it settled into gentle, cleansing sheets.

I am often referred to as the Weather Goddess, by those who hike with me, because of my knack for getting us out of the woods (literally) without a drop of rain hitting us. The rains may close in just as the car door shuts, or we may walk all day with visibly threatening storms all around, but somehow we don't generally get wet. Saturday I must have wanted a good soaking. It was Rio's turn to join me, a privilege she quickly had reason to regret, though, being a good dog, she did not take out on me. We had a lovely mile and a half, just enough to get a good cadence going, before the aforementioned thunder cracked the skies wide open. It may have been "smarter" to turn around, but Rio and I felt no ambivalence about going the distance (she was attached to a leash – it’s possible I misinterpret her degree of enthusiasm).

Walking in the rain, in the fall, the sensory experience is transformative. Looking through a window onto such a scene, the words “dreary” or “dismal” or even “depressing” spring to mind. But out in it, it’s enlivening. The moisture commingles the elements into a spicy broth that nourishes the soul. Four miles down a dirt lane, alongside a brook that tumbled crazily, it required a conscious effort to think of adjectives like wet, dry, cold, warm, comfort, misery. And no amount of effort could determine whether any of those applied to me. There was no relative experience, there was only this experience, this moment when I breathed fish.

Fish. Originating in the creek beside me? A pond hidden from view but revealed by a puff of breeze? Or further? Winds had driven this rain from afar, from rivers and ponds and lakes and oceans. From mountain glens and glaciers. From breath, and death. This rain, this drenching exhalate, had been camel, had been albatross, had been earthworm, had been, apparently most recently, fish. And now, it was me.