Today’s weather truly set the stage for an unexpectedly memorable afternoon. At noontime, as I stepped out of my apartment, a light rain greeted me, a gentle tap on the shoulder from the sky, nudging me into the world whether I liked it or not. Truth be told, I wasn’t really in the mood to venture out. Yet, something in me, call it my inner witch, started urging me forward with an insistence that felt both familiar and always just a little mysterious.
By the time I reached the intersection of West End Avenue and High Street, the rain had shifted from mild to a full-on drenching. I resigned myself to the inevitable: I was going to get soaked. That’s when a surprise arrived in the form of Mike, my regular waiter from Dominick’s. He pulled up next to me, rolled down his window, and shouted for me to hop in. I didn’t hesitate; Mike’s timing was impeccable.
As we drove, Mike explained that he’d just left the hospital. I asked if everything was alright, and he reassured me, chuckling, “It was just a pizza delivery.” That bit of humor lightened the mood as the rain beat steadily outside.
During our ride, we both found it amusing that I kept wiping water off my sunglasses, a somewhat pointless exercise considering my blindness. Clean lenses or not, they aren’t going to help me see, but old habits die hard, “Right?”
Once I arrived at Hayek’s Market, I thanked mike for the lift (bailout) before walking inside to order a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce and tomato on a round roll. The walk home was solitary, no spontaneous rides this time, but the rain eased up when I was ready to leave the place, remaining light to moderate for most of the return trip.
The rain didn’t pick up again until I turned onto West End Avenue, “The home stretch.” My hair ended up thoroughly soaked, but my clothes were for the most part only damp to the touch, not the full soak-through I’d been bracing for.
It’s funny how, more often than not, things just seem to work out for me in these situations. Nine times out of ten, I manage to travel between storms. And when I do get caught, rides tend to materialize, just like today, a reminder I think that there’s a governing force in charge. It’s like God’s trying to let me know, “You’re in the magick buddy. Be a good boy and keep moving with it.”
If Mike hadn’t arrived when he did, I’d have been drenched down to the skin, shivering my way home. Instead, I spared the worst of it. I guess God still likes me, “Right?”
My relationship with the weather has been a bit strange over the past thirty years. Back in the mid to late 1990s, I used to have remarkably accurate dreams which indicated upcoming weather events, my success rate being between 80 and 85 percent, right up until about 2018. Since then, that intuitive channel has changed.
Starting around 2014, I began sensing not so much the arrival of storms with advanced notice, but the best times to travel between them when inclement weather was already in play. This shift turned out to be incredibly helpful; being slightly damp is always better than being soaking wet.
Rain, overall, has a soothing effect on me. Despite my wet hair, I genuinely enjoyed today’s outing. I laugh with Mike’s words still echoing in my mind as I write this, him saying to me at one point as he drove, “When you feel like you gotta get out of the house, you just got to get out no matter what the weather is doing.”
Over the years, I’ve noticed that the weather, no matter who is doing the forecasting, has become increasingly unpredictable beyond a few hours. But a bit of intuition, and a friendly face in a passing car, can certainly make everything fall into place.
