Bus stop, wet day

Tonight I was forced to reconsider my opinion on God. Perhaps He does exists, after all. If He does, He's got a sense of irony, and you've got to admire that in a deity.

You see, all week long I've been making fun of the weather in California. How it's colder inside than it is outside. How what they call rain wouldn't even be remarked upon by people who live in places where it actually rains. How the weather is the same every day. How there really isn't any weather at all.

My students have been dropping in to my office all week, to pick up their assignments, and, upon noticing that the tips of my fingertips and the tip of my nose are blue, they remark, "Man, it's cold in here!"

It is approximately 50°F in my office. Outside, it is at least 55°F; 60°F if you're in the sun.

It's not just my office, it's the whole building; possibly all the buildings on campus. Last week I noticed two students wearing gloves in my classroom, and several wearing scarves. Indoors.

"You must be used to the cold!" they exclaim, knowing I'm from Canada. "At least it isn't snowing here!"

True. But in Canada we heat the insides of our buildings!

Jonathan, one of my favourite students, the one who was wearing gloves indoors, laughed. "It's true, we're all just a bunch of wusses! I'm from southern California, so it seems like it's freezing all the time up here."

Then there's the rain: "We get a little bit of rain and everyone runs home and stays inside. No one knows how to drive in it," explained Jonathan.

What they call rain is what I used to call mist from the Falls.

Today, I'd been in my office all afternoon, grading assignments. Yes, I can do that at home, but to do it at home requires (a) hauling said assignments home and, (2) hauling them back again. So I prefer to do it in my office. Less hauling.

I could hear the rain. My office is on the ground floor, and I have two windows. I didn't worry about it; knew it would stop soon.

It didn't stop.

Two hours went by; it was full dark now, and still the rain hadn't stopped. And it sounded like real rain. I went outside for a cigarette and for the first time since I've lived here, had to seek shelter.

It was 9:00. I still had a dozen or so assignments to grade, but I was getting hungry and I wanted to get home. And the damned rain was showing no signs of ceasing. It seemed there was no two ways about it; I was going to get wet. So I walked home, with that Hollies' song ringing in my brain, and wondered why there is never a handsome man with an umbrella at the bus stop when I need one.

When I got home, this is what the sidewalk outside my building looked like:



It was dark. It was wet, and windy, and downright miserable. Slippery piles of leaves obstructed the sidewalk.

It was just like home! I was overcome with verklemptness.

The leaves followed me into the elevator:

And marked the trail down the corridor to my door, like little wet breadcrumbs:

This is the wall directly across from my apartment door. The leaves painted on the wall are painted on the wall, but the ones on the floor are real. And the real ones appear to be from the Japanese maple in the arched open-air alcove just around the corner. They blow off, when it's windy, and...

... I just got it! The meaning of the painting, that is.