'Why do you always make me walk in the rain' he grumbles as we walk a loop - 'around the block', as we say here, though there's no strict square of streets to walk around.
'It's not' I grumble back. 'Stop focussing on the negatives'. I'm snappy - even a small bit of stress these days gets me irritable and wired. I have to walk to shift the flood of cortisol that clenches my jaw and makes the back of my neck hot and prickly. No matter how I breath, I can't shift it, though a walk will keep the worst at bay til the next flood.
He's quite for a while. I feel sorry for him - he has his own stresses too, and I'm no longer patient with his grumbles as I used to be. I'm so busy trying to see the bright side of everything that it annoys me that he can't do the same. I don't wan't to focus on the shit. The shit has happened - let's move on. Let's focus on the good. It's been a tough few years, and we're looking forward to the end of this part of our lives at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, we walk. The air is cold and our faces are numb. I love the rain on my face, as it makes me feel something other - other than what? Frustrated? Stressed? Anxious? All of the above. I can focus on the hot prickling on my face as the nerves fire against the cold and the world fades away. We have puffer jackets and scarves and beanies, so within a few minutes we'll be warmer.
He turns around to see a double rainbow, and explains it in terms of physics. 'Did you know,' he starts 'something something physics?'. I don't care about the science, but I bite my lip and pretend to be interested. I want to say: 'see? without rain you can't get rainbows' but I don't want to argue, or to be right. None of this is his fault. It's just my own irritation. I need to be alone, but sometimes you don't get that in a marriage.
The gum trees have gone blue in the rain. They stand out, beautiful and cold trunked. I don't know why they change colour. Later, I'll look up the science for it. It's because these trees have a thick outer layer of bark that can absorb water when it rains. The bark swells and expands, causing the outer layer to change color. But for now neither of us know, and are just feeling into the beauty of the path and the gums in the rain.
The photo here won't do it justice - we have left our phones behind to look at the world-screen. Even I'd snapped the blue trunks, the camera would have failed to capture the drizzle, the chill, the bacteria in the soil that produces geosmins, which creates petrichor - the fancy word for the smell of the world in the rain.
My thighs ache with cold.
Our hands reach for each other, and though they are exposed and chilled, the palms cup together warmly. This too is a marriage - the courage to reach across the divide and hold tight in the winter.
'Feeling better now?' I say.
'I am, thanks.' he says, untwinning his hand from mind and putting his arm around my shoulders. I lean in, snuffle into the dampness of his jacket.
'Me too', I say. 'me too.'
With Love,
[IMAGE: https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/riverflows/Eq355DJxn7AuvLe4Awvcn46Xt4RwK22QiMk8kvKg1tbFQCTS3wHkYGtzW9LUEv6AP49.png]
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