Rain Runs
From Cape Cod to Colombia
I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t look up for anyone during my runs. During my strolls and bike rides, I’d make an effort to look around and make contact with my neighbors. Buenas, I’d say to one group. Adios, I’d echo to another. But from now on runs would be my personal space, my self-care, and my solitude. With angsty teenage garage rock in my ears and my gaze fixed forward, running would be indiscriminately my time and my time only.
Today I didn’t have to worry about that, though. Usually, I catch the eyes of every meandering group of pelaos around the pueblo. They shamelessly leer at me, expecting some magic to pop out of the gringo’s ears. Not today, though. Today it was serenando.
Serenar and lloviznar are two words that both mean ‘to drizzle.’ Frankly, I love them both and often have trouble choosing which to use. Whichever your poison, that is what it was doing today during my run — drizzling — which made the streets more vacant than they are during my typical vueltas.
My run started dry, but with those quick blasts of cool air that signal a coming rain. However, as I approached the northernmost tip of the pea-pod that is my municipio, the illuminated seawall gave way to eternal black in the distance. Pressing on, I began to feel droplets starting to spray from the pestilent overcast. I turned my head to assess the severity of the coming storm and caught a fully-formed rainbow set against a backdrop of thick, ominous clouds. In my tunnel-visioned running stupor, I barely had the wherewithal to think this is wild as I pressed on.
I saw clearer skies beyond the coming torment, and almost thought that it would pass us by. Even after 21 months in this country I can still find the headspace for naivety. As the storm enveloped us, I saw some people start to take cover, but I didn’t mind. I love running in the rain. The cold, repetitive solitude of raindrops hitting the concrete seems fitting for the overly-serious tone of my average runs. I arrived at my favorite part of the workout, a circuit of hill sprints on the bridge connecting the two sides of the highway — 30 feet of metallic agony. I’ve affectionately dubbed them ‘donuts,’ an allusion to a workout my fellow lifeguards and I used to do on the shore of Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro. I shamelessly imagined myself as being cool — the gringo taking on the iron steps during the impending aguacero. Eventually, the rain became heavier, and I chose to return home in fear of damaging my iPod.
I reached my house just in time for the downpour. Children began running out of their houses and pouring into the streets with the water. I chose to do the same. Stepping into the aguacero, I flinched a bit at first, then a little less, and then I let the water wash over me. I hadn’t even fully recovered from the heat-seared run, and my body was being rushed with cold breezes piercing the tropical heat and icy water simmering on my hot skin. I almost felt buzzed, neurons firing all over my forehead and in my cheeks. I looked around to see kids playing in the streets: girls screaming and splashing each other and boys running with their fútbols in hand as they retreated from their pickup games. This might be the best moment of my service, I guiltily thought drunk with endorphins.
I thought again to lifeguarding on Cape Cod. My friend Lucy and I are running through the trails behind the beach, pushing ourselves through the New England summer heat, only to jump into the frigid Atlantic and emerge renewed. Back in Colombia, standing half-naked on my porch, the water soaked me. Parts of the corrugated roof allow rain to collect and pour in concentrated streams like a waterfall. I shamelessly closed my eyes, conscious of how cheesy I must have looked. I opened them to see my neighbor across the street standing under his gutter, water gushing out in one forceful stream, a real outdoor shower!
I wrapped a towel around myself and thought of the first time my uncle taught me how to change in wet clothes. In a final callback to the Cape, I remembered my adolescence, learning how to surf on White Crest beach and changing into my wetsuit in public. In disbelief, I thought to myself that up until this moment, I would have categorized today as a bad one.
