Blame it on the Rain

It's not the rain that's getting me down; it's the incessant complaining about the rain. The #1 greeting or Facebook status these days is lamenting the "lack of summer."

We celebrated yesterday's morning downpour with a family hottub in the garden, with children ecstatic about this good fishing weather. And how adorable they looked in their slickers and umbrellas heading off to the Duncan Daze parade. No worries about it raining on their parade - they had a great time. No-one got sunburnt or dehydrated, no-one wearied from the heat, no scrambling for that one shady spot along the parade route. Just warm wet happy puppies playing in the summer puddles.

If 2011 isn't the Best Summer Ever, would it really be the weather's fault? Sure there could be more sunbathing days, but my garden would also be thirstier, and I'd have constantly greasy hands from kids' sunblock. Our lemonade bills are down this year, and backyard baseball games last much longer on cloudy days with green grass to lie in.

This cultural obsession with the weather feels like just another externalization, a shedding of personal responsibility for our state of happiness. Our boss, our god, the economy, the government, that Things-To-Do list (like someone else wrote it), our achy back, that counter that needs scrubbing, and of course those damn clouds - all these things jump in our way to achieving true happiness, to doing what we really want to do. "If only X and Y and Z, then I'd have time, then I'd have no stress, then I'd do what I really want. Then I'd be happy."

I'm not looking for the silver lining behind the cloud. I'm looking at that cloud straight-on and appreciating the rain for my fields, the coolness for my house, the shade for my head, the astounding gradations of grey, the lack of crowds at the park, the beautiful eyes of non-sunglassed friends, the puffy aerial variety show. I've looked at clouds from both sides now, and still somehow refuse to allow something 10,000 feet above my head to disturb my Peace. It's mine to create or destroy, and I will not lean on an permeable accumulation of condensed water vapor as an excuse to not live fully.

My glass is half full, dammit, and if it's half-full of rainwater than it's that much sweeter to drink from.