Into Each Life...

   There is a saying: "Into each life a little rain must fall". From what I could find out, this refrain comes from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, entitled The Rainy Day, from whence comes this last verse:

"Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."

   The tone of the whole poem, and particularly the connotation that is commonly meant when the line is used, is a negative one, saying that rainy days are bad things. But I don't know if that is necessarily true, especially in my case.

   Now I know that it may be true for those folks who have come to our island to have some beach time, or who have a morning tee time. They may feel that their weekend is shot and they should have stayed at home and saved the money. It may be true for the competitors in the SEC Golf Championship at Sea Island, and even the people who live here full time and only have this day in the week to work on outside projects, but when I hear the rain on the roof in the early morning, I think "this is a day in which I am not forced to take advantage of the great weather outdoors".

   Now, don't get me wrong. I love the climate here and the "almost always" good weather. There are many days of sunshine, of nice breezes off the ocean, and these afford the opportunity to be out and about in various forms of recreation. A little golf here, a little tennis there, some walking and biking thrown in for good measure. What is there to not like?

   Can there be too much of a good thing?

   Perhaps a rainy day is just a welcome break from the normal of life, a chance to sit back and catch up on things that need to be done, even if that does not involve much physical effort. Reading, writing, doing things that have been put aside for the sake of enjoying sunny skies. Now that is not all bad either.

   I can hear the comments of folks looking out their rented rooms this morning and seeing the raindrops splashing in the puddles, "no problem for you to say that, you are retired and don't have anything to do anyway, and besides, you have so much in the way of good weather, you are spoiled".

   And I reply, "that may be true, but even retired people who live in nice places need a break every now and then".

   We can even look forward to these kinds of days.

   I came across these lines in a blog post while searching for quotes about rain. This from a person who understood.

   "I don't think that I could ever live without the rain. It's lovely here all year long, just not for everyone."

   And then another Longfellow quote:

   "The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."