April Showers...

April showers bring May flowers, and sweet bowers, where roses twine. Now I know too, I can show you, that it's so true all the time, if the sunshine came at one time, all the fun time would soon be through; April showers bring May flowers…

I have only met one person in my lifetime that expressed such pure elation about rain. That was well over twenty years ago when I went back to college in Arizona. Whenever it rains for more than a few days at a time and I start to get depressed due to the lack of sunshine, I can’t help but think of Skeeter.

This young girl and I shared the same English class. Her outrageous couture fell somewhere between shocking punk and depressing Goth. Her many facial piercings (twenty-seven to be precise), her pasty white complexion and her shock and awe persona was a turn off to most of those in the class, as well as by the obvious manner of the instructor. I think the reason I gravitated towards her was not because I was one of the older students in the class and needed to talk some sense in that pretty little head of hers; but because I saw her as a bold self-expression of myself at that age and I envied her that I could never pull it off like she did.

Skeeter didn’t exhibit any of the precarious or rebellious behaviors that most kids who looked like her had, nor did sit the back of the classroom uninterested in what the instructor lectured about. Instead, she was poised with styled confidence that was almost as electrifying as the outrageous color of her hair. She had much to contribute to the class discussions. I’m not sure if anyone actually listened to what she had to say, or if they were only observing her with idle fascination.

Our paths crossed under one of the breezeways one stormy afternoon in route to our next class. I stood there with much apprehension of getting soaked as I watched the rain plummet the cars in the parking lot. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she said. I made some comment, to the effect if you were a duck and when I looked at her, I actually thought I saw color return to her pale complexion. I don’t remember her exact words except for the initial statement, but Skeeter went on to tell me how she grew up in the Valley and the infrequence of long enduring rainstorms was as thrilling to her as someone who rarely saw snow.

I was captivated and I shared her “high”. She told me how she looked forward to the rain for as long as she could recall. She liked the way it tingled her bare skin. It freshened the air, it made the dessert greener, and it brought life to the otherwise dry and cracked riverbeds making the basins and rivers actually live up to their names like Bloody Basin or the Salt River.

Neither of us made it to our next class. She gave me her own personal history lesson of living in Phoenix and told me of her dreams of wanting to be an artist. To this day, I’m glad I didn’t miss the lecture. I don’t know what happened to Skeeter after that semester, I never saw her again. But, I clearly remember the girl who was “different” telling me how living her life made her almost as “high” as walking in the rain.