Seeing through the rain.

The rain gets me down. I've lived in Seattle for 27 of my 48 years and the rain still gets me down. This morning I went running and it was sunny. The Cascades were out. The Olympics were out. I saw Mount Baker and Mount Rainier. I was happy. Joyful.

After my run, I went to yoga and it was a great class. Frani had a tender, creative playlist and it was the usual delicious experience of doing yoga after a run. Hard and necessary. But when I left the studio, it was raining--again. My heart sank.

But why does the rain take my mood towards the bowels of despair? The beauty is still there. I can see so much of it as I sit typing this on my couch. Mount Baker is now hidden by clouds, but I can see the conifers and cherry blossoms down the hill to the lake. The lilacs in my front yard are about the pop and the magnolia tree next to my front door is in full bloom. Yet I pout.

What is it about the rain? I tell myself it's a state of mind, a pattern of thinking. But is it? I wonder sometimes if the mood I get in the presence of clouds and rain helps me to balance out my fast-paced, high-frequency energy. I spend so much time being up, spirited, positive. And I really do feel that when when I'm acting that way, but it's not sustainable. I'd collapse with exhaustion if I maintained that "up-state" of mind all the time.

I wonder if it's like one of my yoga teachers talks about the common cold. The common cold, he says, is there for a reason. It reminds us to slow down and heal. Maybe for a few days or a week we sit on the couch, read more, drink more tea, and in that time, we are giving our bodies a chance to fight the cold naturally, to build our immunity.

Maybe the rain is like that for me. It invites me to shut down a little bit more, to go inside, to settle into the "low" feelings that for me are generally more buried. When I think of it this way, it's a comfort. The rain makes me quiet. It's like a blanket wrapping me up, keeping me warm and calm so I can build up my strength to be who I am when the sun comes out again.