Rainy Day

Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day.

So goeth the nursery rhyme. The already water-logged ground here in Juneau has attempted to absorb rain non-stop for about twenty-four hours. Rain in Juneau is an interesting phenomenon. While each day since my arrival has seen precipitation, only three of the past week could be considered to have born rain. The usual day in Juneau includes the chance encounter with the finest of water droplets, condensed out of the atmosphere more than from a specific cloud, who have suffered the inevitable gravitational effects which act on the massified.

I found myself humming the above tune as I walked through the slop even though I welcomed the rain. Urban, Western (though I'm now more westerly than I've ever been before!) mores have conditioned my outlook on the world, no doubt. Roderick Nash's discussion of the ancient European roots to the American mentality toward wilderness seems alive and well in this Romanitc citizen's subconscious. After all, my "wilderness condition" is one of intellectual appreciation more akin to the literati figures such as William Byrd and James Fenimore Cooper than to the utilitarian scrutiny and moralizing hatred required of the pioneering figures who first settled the wilds of the American continent. And yet I share in the tradition which reads wildness as a pejorative.

Humanity cannot control the weather; rain is therefore, an extension of the wild. Today, rain has made the picturesque ambiance of my wilderness surroundings still more wild, heightening the ingrained subconscious notion that my locale and motives are strange. The day has been a gloomy one only because I have been conditioned to think it such, for gloom is a human construct. In reality, the surrounding wilderness has not taken a turn for the gloomy, becoming ever more wild, rather the soggy peat under my feet has developed brown puddles rich with nutrient. In closing, I shall venture outdoors once more today in order to cast off the dark, heavy feelings I've worn in favor of simply getting wet.