#Pleasures: Rainy Days

While I was walking home today from the Work Search centre, it started to rain.  Nothing heavy, just a light fall of rain.  It was enough to get me to stop, close my eyes as I spread my arms, and smile upwards to the skies as the drops landed on my face.

Of course, I had to start walking again, since I was blocking traffic on the sidewalk standing like that.

But it started my mind thinking about how much I enjoy walking in the rain- almost as much as I enjoy walking in the fog, actually.  Being who I am, I have a tendency sometimes of analysing my feelings in order to understand them and myself better.  That's what I did while walking home with pieces of the clouds dripping around me into puddles.

There's something cleansing about rain, I find.  I can stand in the rain, and let it wash over me- all the while imagining my concerns and worries, and negative thoughts mixing with the water and flowing away into the gutters... leaving me emotionally fresh and clean again.  I feel so much lighter after a walk in the rain.

I also really like sitting on the porch listening to the rain pitter patter against the metal roof, as I sipped a mug of coffee, and taking a puff on my pipe.  I can watch the smoke from my pipe drift up and away to join the clouds and possibly become drops of rain as well.  The air around me feels scrubbed clean of impurities as I sit there letting my thoughts ripple outwards like the drops of rain landing on the surface of the pool and puddles.  With each breath, I can smell the grass and the flowers that catch the drops and sip from them the way I sip my coffee.

The only problem (other than getting strange looks when I stand in the middle of the sidewalk with my arms spread and grinning up into the clouds) is the cold.  I don't handle cold too well, unfortunately, and when you miss cold and damp, my joints ache.  But for this simple pleasure in Life, I'll simply bundle up a bit, make sure my coffee is steaming hot, and ignore the twinges in my knuckles and hip.  For me, the comfort, peace, and simplicity of rain falling is worth enjoying and being a part of... worth forgetting the aches and pains of Life.  Worth being alive.

#Pleasures: The Fog Walk

Life is full of things that frustrate and annoy us humans- which is why it's important for us to also find things that give us pleasure.

Some people go the adrenaline route in their search for pleasure: sky diving, BMX biking, telling Hell's Angles that they would really look much better in mauve.

Myself, I enjoy simple (and less physically painful) things.  One of those things I that really brings me pleasure is the act of walking in the fog.

There's just something about fog that captivates me.  When I lived Downtown, if the fog rolled in, I would walk from my house on 7th and Battle St towards and across the Red Bridge, then through the industrial park to the Halston Bridge, across that bridge, then work my way down towards and across the Overlander Bridge, before walking back to my house.  If you live in Kamloops, you'll know it's a decent walk.

In the fog, it's a magical walk.

I would usually clip my walk-man to my belt (yes, I am that old) so I could have some music to listen to while walking.  The soft click of the cassette tape switch sides back and forth was the only way of telling time in the fog, as without that reminder that time was passing, a second would stretch out into an eternity... and sometimes, an eternity would be over in a second.  With the MP3 player I have now, time will have absolutely no sway over me the next time I enter the soft embrace of the fog banks.

The glow from the street lights would just be that- a dim glow of some orb floating in the distance... something not quite real.  The world would cease to be a concrete thing outside the reach of my arms.  Sometimes, I would wonder if I was even real.  I would no longer be Mike S- man plagued with doubts, and fears, and frustrated dreams.  No, I would be just like the fog and the reality that it created. I would be just pure thought, shedding the negativity like dew on a leaf.  I would leave pieces of my thought-self behind in that unreality.  Entering my "fog walk" meant losing myself for a bit, letting loose the bindings of my thoughts, and letting their vaporous forms drift off and away, before I once again found myself again...

There is something quite therpeutic and soothing about my "fog walks".  When I enter the fog bank, I'm burdened and weighed down, but when I emerge, my back is straighter, and I feel as if my load isn't so heavy.  Even though I would go on these walks by myself- I never felt alone or afraid.  Rather, I felt as if the Universe was welcoming me into those mysterious mists like an honoured friend, weaving time and reality around me like the soft blanket I take comfort under when I'm not feeling well.  The parallel is certainly there.  My blanket wraps around me and comforts me when I'm sick in body, while the fog curls and envelopes me, while brining comfort when I'm sick in heart and soul.

Oh... To get lost in that magical world again soon...