#14 decembrance 2020

I woke to thirty eight degrees and pouring rain — my least favorite weather. I slipped on my muck boots, down vest, wool hat and new long tangerine colored raincoat. I bought this raincoat after I discovered my old black one was no longer waterproof. A bright color for dog walks on the margins of the daylight seemed like a great idea.

As much as I hate this weather I felt like Momo a character from a favorite children’s book called The Umbrella by Taro Yashima. The main character Momo was given red boots and  an umbrella for her third birthday. But she has to wait days before she can use them. The illustrations are soft colored pencil drawings of city views and the coming and going, to and from school. Momo, which means peach in Japanese, tries to convince her Mom she needs the umbrella to keep the sun off but is told she has to wait for the rain. The story is a subtle lesson in the narrative of patience.

This morning my new raincoat felt like that umbrella. It was bright, waterproof and fit perfectly. It made my sopping wet route like a dance. The story reminds me of the beauty in bringing active attention to my repetitive everyday walks. The illustrations remind me of the view from our NYC Ninty-Fifth Street apartment. The yellow chair Momo sits in while putting on her boots feels like something I sat on. The raindrops bouncing on pavement are a micro moment from long ago bringing back the rhymes and rhythms of an urban childhood.

This well-thumbed novel
Was the tale she loved best,–
Fields of autumn rain.

— Richard Wright, from Haiku: This Other World, eds. Yoshinobu Hakutani and Robert L. Tener, Arcade Publishing, 1998

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