You are walking in the rain. Not a sprinkle like a fine dust sifting down, nor the typical Seattle rain, the light, constant, dampening rain that plays with you as you decide whether to open or close your umbrella, it’s so light it’s not really worth it, noticeably more dense in passing waves. No. This is a real downpour, the alleys turned into rivers of grubby water, the sidewalks coursing, this is a rain you remember from the East Coast, but there’s no thunder, nor lightning, no just boring, relentless, soaking rain. You don’t have your umbrella, so you’ve pulled your hood over your head, thankful for the hooded zipped sweatshirt and leather jacket. The jacket is holding up so far, protecting you but your legs, your jeans are wet and clinging around your ankles, the tops of your thighs darkening, damp and itching.
Your canvas shoes flood if you step in a puddle, you jump far at curbs to avoid the filthy rivers but you are caught off guard by the hidden puddles in dips of sidewalks where the concrete settled, just so, as it dried or tree roots have swelled the concrete up, and so you look down, always down at your feet unless it’s a corner, then you look for traffic both ways, always both ways. You’re waiting for the light, for the little walking man to show you the way. Walking is waiting. You remember to step back and you do before a bus passes, splashing gouts from the gutters.
You get started again, pick up the pace, you must get there, that’s why you’re here in the rain, what drove you from your condo, leaving it reluctantly like you were being pulled from the encompassing depths of warm honey into the sodden streets. You walk faster and soon you’re breathing audibly in shivering breaths but you don’t care because you keep walking faster. The wet fleece clings to your head, you can still feel your hair’s damp but not wet thank god at least you won’t have your hair dry in that funny way it always does, that others think is so cute but you think looks stupid when you look in the mirror.
It’s not really windy at least, the rain drops straight down and not too cold, but it’s also fucking June and where’s the fucking summer already? You’re glad of the leather jacket but feel where the water’s soaked in the seams. So cold you shiver, but your heart is beating faster, and you know once you get there, once you stop, you’re going to be hot as hell, like you spent 30 minutes on the treadmill, and you’ll start to feel sweaty and you’re still breathing fast, trying to slow it embarrassed to be panting in front of strangers. You’re not there yet, you’re still walking and you can’t wait to shed your coat, strip off the sodden hoodie.
You’ve stopped again and waiting, cooling, and you think how far to go, start to divide it into chunks of remembered streets, you can’t count them but you know them so well, every storefront a reflection of your silhouette flashing past but you don’t look too long, just a peek, just to know you’re there, because your face gets wet and you look at your feet again. You break it down, decompose it, deconstruct how far you’ve come, how far you have to go.
You have so far to go and you walk faster again, skipping to catch the next street light, the orange hand flashing no don’t go, please don’t go but you go anyway and if you were in another neighborhood, like where you work, where the streets unfold into six lane monsters as they approach the interstate, swelling with shopping malls and business parks. If you were there you could play that game where you see the 10 second count down and you try to time it so your foot hits the curb just as it goes to zero.
But you’re in center, in the city, in the core, where it all began, with sidewalks and too narrow for bike lanes or bus lanes that bloat the street, and neighborhood associations to defend against any changes whatsoever no thanks, we like it just the way it is, thanks. So the lights don’t have a countdown because they’d have to start it right as you left the curb, and you’d never see the shining man. You’d also get your face wet if you looked up at the flashing hand while you cross, so you keep looking down, down at your new sneakers gleaming white toes smiling up at you. Too white, too new, so obvious, but you just got them yesterday and they’re so comfortable and you have a long way to walk.
You’re as wet as you’re going to get, you’ve reached a perfect state of equilibrium, the singularity, where your clothes can’t get any wetter in this rain, not unless this plodding rain increased into a tempest of biblical proportion, a rain that would cause the hills to shear and the whole neighborhood to come sliding, crashing into downtown, a slow moving unrelenting fist of ancient crumbling bricks and mud smashing into buildings, pushing it all out to sea, leaving a swath of rubble. It’s not that kind of rain today. You’ve accepted this stalemate, grudgingly, but what is your choice in the matter as you’re still not there yet, still have so far to go. You walk faster.
