Love in a Downpour

When I started biking home from my office in Boston's North End, the skies looked ominous.  Riding down Atlantic street, I glanced left across the harbor, and saw the white caps being kicked up by the wind.  I felt a drop, then another, then another. Yet, it seemed at least possible that my luck would hold, and the scattered thunderstorms predicted for the late afternoon and evening would scatter elsewhere.

I cut up State Street by Government Center, then down Tremont and through the Boston Common. The drop, drop, drop was still slight, barely noticeable. I picked up Columbus, and with a tailwind - which is always a surprise on the way home - I cruised through the Back Bay.

I remember it was right at the corner of Dartmouth Street that I noticed a women with her white ear buds and their wires trailing out, and a naked-to-the-elements gray macbook clutched to her chest. I noticed her because I couldn't help noticing her.  She screamed and then started sprinting in her high-heeled sandles.

The skies had opened up.

In seconds, I was riding in an all out downpour.  Thunder, lightening, and the streets suddenly flowing rivers - the drains too overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught.  Water was shooting up from my front tire, splitting against my bike frame, and forming steady streams - one for each of my feet and legs.

I was soaked almost immediately.

As I crossed Massachusetts Avenue, more and more pedestrians sprinted by - a few of them making pathetic efforts at shielding themselves with quickly soggy and disintegrating copies of the Boston Metro.

By the time I picked up the Southwest Corridor Park, the small hand full of other bikers out there that I passed or was passed by all looked at each other with these wide eyes and silly grins that said, HOLY SH*T!

And with the flashing, and the crackling, and the rumbling of ever nearer lightening and thunder, my mind ran with images of power lines going down around me, and electrocuting anyone, like me, sloshing through these sidewalk and street rivers; or just zapping me directly (does my bike make me lightening bait?) and flinging me into the path of traffic, or somehow over the fence and onto the subway tracks, where the waiting third rail would add insult to sizzling insult.

Wow, was it ever wild, and I admit a little bit scary, and probably stupid not to just pull aside and wait it out under some bus shelter, or the Northeastern University parking garage, or in an ATM booth.  But it was also exhilarating in the same way it is when you are 10 (which is maybe the best kept secret of the bike commute - it is STILL fun).

At the end of the corridor, back into traffic around Forest Hills Station, and across Hyde Park Ave (almost always the most nail-biting maneuver of the ride), I shifted into my bike's lowest gear, to ascend our steep, steep hill at the usual crawl, and finally the rain stopped.

When I spotted our house, I noticed Ashley through the kitchen window, which soon opened, and two little heads appeared just over the sill.

"Did you get caught in the storm?" James bellowed.

"I did," I said. "And I am soaked."

When I came inside, Maya met me at the top of the stairs, stone faced, her lip turned down just slightly in that I-am-about-to-cry way.

"Daddy caught storm," she said, on the edge of tears.

"She was very worried about you," Ashley said.

I got down to Maya's level, took her hands in mine, and looked in her eyes.

"I'm OK,Maya," I said.  "I made it.  I am very, very wet, but Daddy is OK."

"Jacket OFF!" she insisted, now starting to cry.

"OK," I said, and took it off. "Look at me, Maya, I'm soaked right through."

"Daddy caught storm," said Maya. "Thunder too."

"Maya," I asked, "Do you want to come upstairs and help Daddy put on some dry clothes?"

"Yeah," she said, taking my hand.

"Rain came back," she said.

"Daddy's OK," I said.

"Daddy caught storm," said Maya.  "He's OK."

As we made our way up the stairs, I caught an unmistakable whiff.

"Do you want me to change you," I asked?

"Change you," said Maya, then "Daddy caught storm."

"What should we do first," I asked Maya at the top of the stairs,"change you, or change Daddy?"

"Dry clothes," she said, "Thunder too.  Rain came back."

When I changed out of my drenched gear (then changed her), a lightness returned to her whole countenance.  But the refrain of "Daddy caught storm...He's OK," played on and on that night, and for a few days after.


It really moved me.

It left me struck me that, as a Dad, it is one thing to be depended on, to be reached for in times of distress, to be able to comfort -- but this was something else entirely, a swirl of, wow she is growing up enough to put all these pieces together, and wow she loves me so that she is actually worried about me, really distressed not knowing I was OK, not seeing me with her own eyes, until I was safe and sound, and warm and dry.

Honestly, it just about did me in.

BUT...lest I get stuck in that space, two days later, Maya was coming at me saying, "BOOGER!  BOOGER!" with mounting distress, and this sort of wild look in her eyes.  And I said, "What is it, Maya?" And she just said, "BOOGER!" again and again, until she clambered over Scout the Dog asleep at my feet, and over James sitting beside me reading (for the 100th time) the ice cream story from Frog and Toad all Year - "Maya, stop!" he whined, but she didn't. "BOOGER!" and she got to me, and she grabbed the front of my shirt and, self-service, wiped her dribbling nose with it.

And, once again, all was right with the world