Either way, I’ve had my share of unplanned showers.
One cool summer day, I was so thoroughly soaked from the two-mile trek from church that all I could think about was getting home, kicking off my waterlogged flats, and wrapping myself in as many layers of warm, dry things as I could fit on my body.
I was so close I could taste the sweet Cocoa of Victory . . . only to be thwarted by the Gandalf of traffic lights.
While I stood there with rainwater in my shoes and the tease of imaginary cocoa on my tongue, the disagreeable light permitted passage to plenty of cars, but would not yield to button-pressing pedestrians at the crossroads.
So I waited. For a lull in traffic. For a light. For a sign.
And then, just like that, someone with an umbrella leaned over to shield me. It was generous and neighborly, of course, but it was also comical, because I was unmistakably drenched. I may have said, “Thank you,” but I kind of wanted to say, “It’s too late for me. Save yourself!”
It was one moment in time on a small town street corner, but after my bleary-eyed journey squinting between raindrops that I would never outmaneuver, it felt like the climax of a war film. I was the would-be martyr resigned to self-sacrifice only to be slung over the hero’s shoulder as he limps to the barracks, except my hero had already outmaneuvered the enemy with a scrap of supported fabric. Instead of limping to our glory, we stood still, side-by-side, two neighbors huddled under an umbrella for one, exchanging greetings and gratitude and smiling up at a traffic light as though to persuade it with kindness.When we parted, my neighbor was apologetic, but the gesture and the brief reprieve had already brought me more than enough joy to accompany me home.
Within a month or so, I had the joy of paying the act forward twice, once at a bus stop where the rider had been waiting in the drizzle long before I arrived, and once at another street corner in a sudden downpour. I’ve been learning both to accept others’ generosity and aid and to find joy in receiving, but it felt good to be able to offer others that neighborly love.
Then, whenever I walked in the rain with my umbrella, I became more and more aware of the other pedestrians: whether or not they had umbrellas or raincoats, whether or not the rain seemed to weigh heavily on their bodies and their spirits.
That was when I began to fantasize about carrying two umbrellas.
I imagined giving one away to a different stranger in every storm. I started spending long stretches of my walks pondering the ethical implications of carrying multiple umbrellas and giving them away.
Would it be cumbersome? Wasteful?
Presumptuous? Insulting?
A life’s mission? An expensive hobby?
An overestimation of the trouble of rain?
An underestimation of folks’ contentedness in the rain?
If there was any way to overcomplicate the daydream, I found it.
Weeks later, in another storm, I walked my boyfriend to the train station. We took my two umbrellas. I almost sent one home with him, but he said he’d have little open-air walking to do after boarding the train and he would be fine.
Soon the passengers disappeared, and I was alone on the platform except for one older gentleman with empty hands.
It took a minute to register the circumstances, but then, without any guilt about the overabundance or uncertainty about the gesture, I offered him the second umbrella.
He didn’t speak English and I understood only enough Spanish to know that he was in awe of the storm, but we easily established that he lived along my way home.
As we walked together, he commented on the rain, and I agreed, wagging my waterlogged shoes over the ground to indicate that I could feel the water swishing around my feet.
We laughed. I was laughing because I was doing a ridiculous dance, but I imagine it looked just as ridiculous to him.
It’s a beautiful thing to experience—that moment with a stranger with whom your only common language is life itself; the moment that you realize it’s more than enough. What we couldn’t share in words we shared in umbrellas and grins and squishy shoes.
Once we arrived at his building, I almost told him to keep the umbrella, but when he handed it to me, I accepted it back.
These days, if I remember to carry an umbrella at all, I will try to carry two.
*Research is ongoing.
