Writing Over the Threshold: Rainy Days and Mondays

THE RAINY DAY
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Ballads and Other Poems (William D. Ticknor & Co.)

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Poor Longfellow. He missed a great opportunity. Rainy days for writers, at least for this writer, are something to look forward to, and rainy Mondays even more so than any other damp day of the week. There's something about waking up at the start of the week to the shimmering sound of raindrops falling through the leaves and the gray light that edges in sideways through the cracks in the blinds that makes me want to cuddle up to my desk and work.

Maybe it's a throwback to childhood where rainy days were often spent alone, playing in my bedroom or basement, making up stories in my head until I learned to commit them to paper. Sometimes these were adventures to be acted out by my paper dolls or Barbies, while at other times they were imagining the life I would lead when I was grown up.

A couple years ago I kept stumbling across books and articles that recommended creating your perfect ordinary day. I guess the point is that by envisioning what you'd like to be doing with your life and committing that vision to paper, you've taken the first step to achieving your dream. When I finally sat down to do it, I discovered my vision was pretty simple-- wake up, meditate, breakfast, write, lunch, walk, write/read, dinner, read, bed. Putting it on paper I thought, "Easy peasy! I can do this." But some two years later, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have actually lived that perfect ordinary day since I first wrote it down.

After today, though, I hope I need another finger on which to count those days. I've eaten breakfast, have a pot of tea made (Smokey Earl Gray, the perfect rainy day blend) and am looking forward to fleshing out the notes I made last week for a project I'm working on. I may exchange my afternoon walk for a nap but either way, this rainy day has me feeling inspired.

Evidently rainy days have inspired a lot of painters as well. My gift to you this Monday is a trip to my virtual art gallery for a retrospective on rainy day paintings. You won't even need an umbrella to get there. Enjoy!