Daring To Get Drenched

The reason I adore country music? Story songs.

Since a lot of my road trips to the store, to the library, to the school are solitary, I’m the girl you see driving down the road, belting out a song only she can hear. I keep myself entertained.

I’d listen to story songs all day long. Even the ones that make me cry (you know, like when they don’t get together or someone dies or something). I hate when there’s no happy ending. And yet I’ll listen to it ’til I know all the words and can sing along.

For this reason, I am glad for the genre-police that make sure every book I pick up that is Romance ends with a happily-ever-after or a literary equivalent or something-that-makes-me-smile-and-think-that-was-worth-the-read.

What does all this have to do with that crazy title, Daring to Get Wet?

The fact that I could have titled this post When Tried-And-True Sing-Along Drivers Ride In Silence.

I rode home from the library in silence today. Something I never do.

I don’t know what others’ library routines are, but I have a little system. I go with an idea of what I want (or a list as the case was today). I park and amble up the walk reverently.

The Entrance:

I shoot for the back as fast as these legs will carry me (which is pretty fast, thanks to my puppy’s training). The new books rack, the tables full of students doing homework, the line of computers stretching across the room like icing on a cake, all a blur.

My goal is the shelves.

I dart into the first available empty aisle and breath in the loveliness of being surrounded by paperback, hardcover, big, small, wide, tall words.

After gaping for a minute this afternoon and surrendering to the giddy smile that came to my face, I gathered the items on my list (and a few extras that beckoned) and hunkered down in a quiet corner.

There I sat for about an hour, jammed into an uncomfortable chair that has got to be older than the library itself and looks it. Totally uncaring that my knee would hardly allow me to hobble out the door when I stood, I became engrossed in a YA tome, oblivious to the sky darkening in the window behind me. And, oh, did it darken.

Shutting the book, I realized my mistake. It was either stay or flee.

On my way to check out my books, I stumbled upon the DVD Gone with the Wind, which I have been wanting to watch anyway. It went to the top of the stack in my arms, because it’s plastic and wouldn’t be ruined by the torrential downpour which met me as the doors slid open. With flip-flops slapping (now you know I live in the South–flip-flops in December) and jeans turning to plaster, I walked across the parking lot.

Laughing. The entire time.

A year ago, no, a month ago… okay, probably a week ago, I would not have reacted like that. Upon seeing those big, angry clouds crying on my town, I would have high-tailed it back into that library so fast, Gone with the Wind would have thought itself watched.

But I didn’t. Even though my truck sat over yonder, clear on the other end of the parking lot. I only got scared once. I’m a clumsy, klutzy, trip-if-you-talk-to-me girl and about halfway to safety (i.e. silver truck with my initials in the back windshield) I realized me + driving rain might not equal a happy equation. Glancing down at Scarlett and Rhett, I mused that I could seriously injure myself falling trying to transport them to my truck.

Even then I kept laughing.

Raindrops pounced on the books, on my arms trying to shelter them, in puddles in front of me, and… I tasted raindrops. They tasted sweet.

When I finally jumped into the driver’s seat, laughing, shivering, drying off the books with that washcloth Daddy said would be a good idea to keep in the glove compartment and I didn’t believe him until today…

I realized that daring isn’t about the safe, the comfortable, the routine, or even the happily-ever-afters.

“Going around under an umbrella interferes with one’s looking up at the sky.” — J. Kosinski

Daring is getting drenched and tasting the sweetness of the rain.

And daring is turning the radio off and listening to the music the rain makes.