Rain Walking

If you turn up your collar, just so, and scrunch your shoulders up around your neck like closed wings, the rain just... slides. It's possible to stay both warm and relatively dry just by keeping the rain off your neck.  You move through and around the drops, a little hutch of warmth and dryness braving the elements. When your hair is short, like mine, you learn these things quickly. As you walk, the rain floods around your feet, the kind of rain that rushes down so hard it continues right onto the sidewalk. You're wading through minuscule rivers, each one carrying its own load of trash and leaves. Slowly, as you continue on your way, you notice... not so much a smell but a feeling. The world slowly washes itself away, the sound of cars replaced by echoing rain and the underlying dirty scent of streets fading into rainy purity. The city, for a moment, feels clean.