The future will be small and mean. With that uninviting prospect in view, I am sailing, or drifting, or tumbling, to it. Sorry, but I have to add: so are you.
It has been a year of rain. When it was the season for snow, it rained. The thaws came, and the rains came. April showers brought May showers, and storms, and drizzles, and deluges. Some flowers came up. It rained in July, and it rained in August, and it rained in September. There was a hurricane in there somewhere, and it seemed like just another rainy night, until I saw all the water it left behind. A little variety in the menu for October, when it snowed, but then we went back to our diet of rain.
I have had substantial experience with rain, and I can tell you: Rain isn’t that interesting. It’s rarely (in these parts) challenging, or frightening, or exciting. What it is, is discouraging. And when I look forward to the small, mean new world before us, I see us not marching toward it as an army, not dancing toward it like a parade, but shuffling toward it as a rabble, the foremost carrying the flag of this emerging nation. And on the flag is Rain.
This is going to sound too glib by half, I know, but often rain is what you make it. It can be refreshing. It also makes the crops grow. It’s also miserable sometimes, though, no matter how hard you try to make it something else. I get that.
And I also loved–and agree with–your first paragraph. So eloquently said.