Drenched ©
The clouds opened up above my head, throwing water down on the city in sheets. The storm brewed and churned in the dark cover of night as I walked through Washington Square Park. It was a ghostland of it’s usual self. I was the only one passing through and the new slate gray benches were being pelted so hard that it looked like the rain was falling up. The street looked like a glistening pool of water, reflecting multi-colored neon signs over slick pavement and puddles.
I was alone with nowhere in particular to be and it felt unbelievable. As the sky cried down ribbons of rain, I lifted my head upward and let it pour over my face and bare arms as I smiled into the velvet black clouds. My eyes went wide as the heavens answered my interest with lightning followed by the soft purr of thunder a few moments later. It lit the marble cornices of the building and for a moment I imagined there were gargoyles that might leap from their lofty hiding places and swoop down to fly me over the city. I felt at that moment that I was in sore need of an adventure. Alas, the architecture remained in place.
I hummed the opening notes of “Singing in the Rain,” sashaying from side to side for a few steps. The shower was cool on my warm skin. I wanted to sink into the storm and live in it with an open heart. I wanted it to soak through my hair to my scalp and make my clothes hang off of the frame of my body.
My pants were getting heavy and long, wrapping around my sandaled feet as they sloshed through unexpectedly deep puddles at street corners. I didn’t care if the rain ruined me all together. For once, I wasn’t trying to get from one point to another, I was simply a point moving along of it’s free own will.
I made a second loop around the fountain at the center of the park for no reason except that I wanted to. I looked at the new plantings in the park and watched the water drip down from one leaf to the next. It made me think of watching Bambi as a little girl.
The rain thickened, urged on by another flickering lightning bolt. The downpour applauded the pavement repeatedly, making the sound of countless clapping hands. I wrapped my arms over my head. I couldn’t see anything, just snips of light and puddles as I darted across University Place. The water was so powerful that it was forcing it’s way into my eyes, grabbing at my contact lenses. I blinked rapidly as I tried to see straight and was chased by the aggressive weather under the red and black awning of a popular lounge. People were inside enjoying their fancy drinks and looking dapper, peering out the misty windows at my gloriously disheveled form. I struggled with my contacts, trying to get my pointer finger dry enough to keep the lens form clinging to it like an insistent toddler begging to be held. It felt strange to be focused on such a small thing after being so open to the vast sky just moments before.
Once the task was complete, I squinted at the street, blinking slowly to be sure the contacts were in right. As my vision cleared, I saw a boy across the street from me, tucked under the overhang of one of the NYU buildings. He sat on the lip of a stairway in a white tank top and jeans, lit from the side by stark white light from a nearby window. He had short brown hair and his head was sinking between his widely placed knees, feet flat on the lowest step. His hands were linked behind his neck as he stared down at the ground with his elbows perched on his knees. He was exceptionally still. A glint of varnished wood caught my eye. Behind him, tucked in back a nearby column was a sad, little, lonely guitar.
The image was so gripping that I almost crossed the street to get a closer look. He didn’t see me from where I was standing although I must have been staring for at least a full minute. I wondered what his story was. Was there a woman? A man? Just by scooting back a few inches, he could have been shielded by the rain, but like me, he was indulging in the weather. Nothing would have stopped him from playing, but he had decided not to for some reason. There was something about him that reminded me of Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist. I remembered seeing it as a child at The Art Institute of Chicago. I was told by my teacher that it was very famous and important, but I didn’t see anything so special about it. Yet here I was on an ordinary Friday night in New York City, thinking of that painting- Thinking of this boy and why he wouldn’t play in the rain, why he had given up hope.
I frowned as the street was lit momentarily by a flash of lightning. The thunder was farther away now, almost inaudible amongst the ambient urban sounds from Broadway. I started walking towards the “N” train. I was returning to the New York I remembered.
The New York I hated in the rain.
The New York that made me buy the most heinous neon yellow umbrella I could find so that people would stop trampling me in the rain.
Suddenly there were people around me and the storm was all but gone. I descended into the subway. The clouds curled back up into the waiting cupboard of the the sky like guestroom pillows being put away after a visitor vacates, leaving the house just a bit emptier. I felt strangely abandoned and lost, left with the lingering tendrils of a magical experience, a poetic one even. I’m sitting here trying to discern what any of it may have meant, but I’m utterly at a loss for words beyond the surreal beauty of what literally happened. All I know is that I won’t soon forget the extraordinary walk to the subway that should have been mundane.
