It's amazing how a little rain can sap your energy. That and a room full of 9 year olds. Have you ever watched a roomful of little kids? Constant motion. They don't stop. And the fact that I HAVE to stop and sit down or else I will fall over just makes me SO. DAMN. TIRED. DH and I looking at places to live come his liberation from our armed forces just reminds me that I DO NOT LIKE COLD. I sit in my car shivering in the morning, clutching my layers around me like some sort of self-concious Pilsbury dough girl, cursing at the 60 degree rainy weather. And HEY! NEWSFLASH! It will get even colder! The rain cloud over my head darkens and I mumble expletives through bites of baby carrots and red pepper hummus, lest some of the kidlings hear me and run to tell their parents. I think about the rain in Saipan. How the sun would shine through making rainbowlets in the distance, in the puddle in the parking lot of the Joeten that still smells the same as it did when I was 5 years old. I loved getting wet in that rain. Where your clothes stick to your skin and your hair runs down your face, and you feel beautiful, invincible, marine - instead of like wet rat, which is probably what I looked like more often than not throughout typhoon season. THis morning I stood under the covered drive-through of our building hopping from foot to foot wondering how I would dodge the raindrops until I reached the safety of my squeaky windshield wiper car/boat. I used to hang out my friend Gin Gin's window laughing as the drops hit my cheeks because I was hanging out the window manually operating her defunct windshield wipers with a piece of string pilfered from a student so that we could see to drive home. The amazing thing about that rain? Only the haole's appreciate it. Mothers scold their children for running around in the rain that falls while the sun is out, believing to their bones that the children will suffer from sickness. Nothing could be further from the truth, but who am I to argue with age-old wives tales and superstitions? Maybe that's what made the rain magic on Saipan.
Japan rain is decidedly un magic. It is cold, wet, and often hangs around long after I wish it gone. It hangs on like that fall cold, a sneeze behind your nose and a fingernail in your throat, leaving you sitting on the couch wishing for brighter days. Maybe I'm just waxing nostalgic, but I want to move back to a place like that. With warm rain. Lazy days. Wishful thinking. A black and white rerun of the Simpson's beckons while I type, reminding me that I am supposed to be working tomorrow. An overly organized classroom with a 1st/2nd grade split. They have walkie talkies in there. They call me Eagle 1.
Maybe it'll clear up tomorrow.
How did I ever live through last winter?