Japan has rain. It met me about five minutes into my bike ride home and left me five minutes before the journey's conclusion. My clothes have appreciated the abatement as they take a rest from the downpour on the porch outside. How is it that the people along the way knew this would be only a passing shower, taking temporary refuge under trees and bridges? How were they so faithful that a leisurely Sunday would not be taken from them, their outdoor pleasures snatched away until another week of free time had accrued, past due? But there I was, drenched and stared upon by eyes more curious than normal. Who was this strange person who would move through the shower, against the force of nature? That I could not wait with them the amount of time, to suspend the journey, to suspend the soccer or baseball game a little longer. Perhaps I had thought it would be like so many other rains and that I would celebrate it with a dry towel and a bowl of soup and the sound of it in the trees from within a dry home. Perhaps I forgot that it was Sunday, and that there are certain rules of man and nature, rules concerning the treatment of time and weather that go beyond the activities of the home. Perhaps I was missing Kaneko-san, our HPAC opera rehearsal having postponed our weekly hour. Perhaps I should occasionally check the weather, or linger longer after early dismissed rehearsals, or leave more quickly.
But my Sunday leisure become the smell of the rain, the sheets of it coming down on the river, opening tiny holes in its surface, the open path shared by the occasional crazy runner or the elderly woman smiling sympathetically at me from under an umbrella. I'm still not sure if this is the rainy season. It's hard to delineate the definition of such a time, the start and finish of such a phase of the year. When does it begin, when does it end?
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