Spring seems to have come a little early this year. Yes, it still snowed recently but its the kind of snow where you can rollout the most perfectly packed snow man only to watch him melt later that day. So now begins the gray and soggy days that are needed for the plants to grow once that sun starts really warming us up. Rainy days can be wonderful for sure. The time forced inside allows for a great movie, a fire, games, some baking, or the ability to tackle that creative project or work you just haven’t had time to start, but I am more than eager for the heat and dry days ahead.
As the weekend rolled around I was hopeful for a bright and warm day but I was greeted with chilled gray rain instead. I had been cooped up in the house and office most of the week and this was my opportunity to get outside for some fresh air. I have to admit I was a little let down by the conditions. Instead of sitting outside and relaxing I chose to go for a run in a place that was even more wet and muddy. Near by is this great gully where a stream cuts through the middle of two walls too steep to hike up in the stormy weather. I found the “stairs” that lead to the top of the two paths and chose the one to the left which runs the edge of the hill top. No headphones with a digital soundtrack needed for this run. The analog sound of the water fall, stream, and rain pouring down through the tree and onto the leaf strewn ground was the perfect percussion concerto. It wasn’t quite running if I am honest, it was more of speed slipping and balance recovery the whole way. At the half way point through the trail there is an over look where I could finally see the waterfall cascading down the shale. I have no idea how high up I really am but I like to think it was a few hundred feet, it wasn’t for sure but I still like to think that. I finished my run and headed back to bottom of the stream.
At this point I don’t know what came over me but I hopped onto a large stone, and then to the next, then grabbed a fallen tree and jump to a landing in the middle of the stream. Something begins take over, something like the flow state. Although the stakes are very low and the biggest risk is a twisted ankle or a face plant into a cold stream, you raise the game in your mind and heighten your awareness, speed, and decisiveness. You begin to move as if you have laid the stones out yourself for the perfect pathway and you see everything in magnified detail. I went on leaping, climbing and swinging myself through middle the of the stream in the rain with exacting precision. Void of even one false move I made way back to my car and headed home drenched and full the clarity that follows time alone in the rain at the bottom of a waterfall.
At times it seems like it is just raining on our expectations and plans for our lives. We have bright and sunny ideas but now it seems we should stay sheltered, protected, or at the very least, dry. What I often fail to acknowledge during these times is that because of the rain everyone else is sheltered, because of the rain I get to have an entire trail to myself, because of the rain my path provides more challenge and fulfillment, because of the rain I am already soaked and have no reason to want to keep dry, because I am soaked I no longer care if I fall in the water, because I no longer care if I fall in the water I can take on more risk with less fear, and with less fear I get to a waterfall that can only be reached by hiking up the middle of the running stream. Next time things don’t go my way, I will walk into the alternatives as opportunities and allow the chain reaction of events to lay a completely unexpected and thrilling experience. At the end of it all there may just be something beautiful I wouldn’t have tried reached otherwise.
“Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better” Chris Voss.
Written while listening to “Persistence” by Lowercase Noises
