Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Evening Rain Part 2

I guess after my rainy post of a few weeks ago, this one seemed impossible to not write about. There I was mesmerised by the visuals of rain without the physical effect. Snug indoors.
Here I was, 3am in Dublin city centre, and it was raining. Rain like I hadn't seen in the UK In years - a thick vertical forest of water reflecting the light from a million pubs as it splashed downwards on its journey to the pavement. There was no time for musing on the beauty of concentric circles when the pursuit of a warm taxi was a far more urgent consideration.
I was told that after taxis were deregulated in Dublin a few years ago, their numbers swelled from 2000 to something like 13,000. This fact didn't help much as it seemed nothing was going to stop for us that night. They were already full or going somewhere else. And it carried on raining - even heavier I thought, or maybe that was just part of my rapidly developing persecution complex.
So we walked home. Clothes and shoes and jackets soon became one sodden squelchy mass as we danced around puddles and precarious pavestones. At the half-way point I started smiling. There was this sudden moment of realising that I could do one of two things. I could be a miserable, conceited and very selfish bastard and bemoan the unfairness of it all in a "why me?" way, or I could enjoy this experience. I enjoyed the rain pouring through my hair and somehow being funneled down the back of my collar. I enjoyed the crazy laughter we all had at this shared misfortune. It felt like freedom, childhood memories of tasting raindrops, and mostly I just enjoyed the sensory rush of being reminded how ace it is to be alive. Or at least, knowing what it is to get thoroughly pissed on in Dublin. It all seems so simple.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The best thing to do when you're stuck in the rain is listen to songs that reference rain in them (that is if you have you iPod or whatever with you.) It always makes me smile!

Hope you didn't get sick! All the guiness probably killed of any flu you had the possibility of catching hehehe.

Charlie said...

Oh certainly, I was far too drunk to care, except that Guinness-drunk is like normal-drunk. The sploshy run home was quite sobering too.