This morning, as usual, I walked to the garage, pulled out my bike, and started out on what might be my favorite part of the day: my bike ride to school. It was nice and cool, the sun was hidden, it was good.

And then it started to rain.

I was walking my bike up Ranch View, out of Tanglewood, and I felt the mist, drizzling down. “Ah, this isn’t bad! Nice and cool.” By the time I got to the top of the hill, it had started to rain in earnest. I peddled along, smiling to myself. Figures. “Should have checked the weather,” I mused as I got progressively more and more wet.

I passed a guy about my age jogging in the opposite direction. I smiled, he nodded – and in that moment we had a short conversation that went something like this:

“Ha! How about us, huh? Whether because we are so macho we don’t care, or just not paying enough attention, caught in the rain.” And then we laughed at ourselves.

Water droplets dripped off the bill of my cap, like tears falling off someone’s nose. But underneath, I was smiling. And grateful class wasn’t for an hour and a half.

As I rounded the athletic fields and came on to campus, it started to pour – serious rain, causing people to run and duck and there I was, peddling through campus, soaked to the skin, water flowing off of me like streams off a snowpacked mountain, and all I could think was 1) thank goodness I didn’t put on eyeliner this morning, and 2) I have a serious date with the hand dryers when I get to a building.

You will be happy to know that within about four and a half hours I was dry again.