It’s October 3rd.
Today is our three-year wedding anniversary.
I awoke on October 3rd, 2015 to a perfect Autumn-in-Los-Angeles day. No rain in the forecast, a perfect smattering of clouds. A perfect day for an outdoor wedding in the Los Angeles mountains.
Today is different. A different perfect. I’m not wearing a white dress down the aisle today – I’m remembering it while sipping 135-degree coffee out of the new white Ember mug Sohrab got me as an anniversary present.
Our wedding day was one of the only days I can remember hoping that it wouldn’t rain. Rainy days are often associated with sadness and melancholy, and rightfully so – there are so many references to sunny days being “better.”
The sun’ll come out tomorrow…” – Annie
(Yay, sun!)
“There’s a storm front coming…” – Billy Joel
(Boo, clouds!)
Even Pixar’s short, Partly Cloudy, gives dark clouds a bad name. But, of course, being Pixar, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
But there’s also romance in rain. Just imagine a kiss in the rain!
Alas, cloudy skies make me happier than blue skies do. And so, on this October 3rd, our anniversary, I welcome the dark clouds.
And, almost everywhere that Sohrab and I have visited gets more rain than Los Angeles. Hawaii. Orlando. Amsterdam. Germany. London.
In Hawaii, rain falls from blue skies. For approximately five minutes. Multiple times a day. It’s odd, but something you get used to after living there a while. I skateboarded down a hill on my college campus in Manoa, once, as a wall of falling water chased me. I was able to outrun it (outskate it?).
On the day after our wedding, we invited our friends and family to join us for another celebration, this time at Disneyland. We spent two nights at the Grand Californian, and then hopped on a plane to Orlando on the 5th to spend two weeks at Walt Disney World for our honeymoon. We spent our days sweating but dodging raindrops – on a specific afternoon, as we wandered Magic Kingdom, the rain pushed everyone into the nearest shop, where Disney ponchos for sale outnumbered the Mickey plushes.
We spent 24 hours in Amsterdam last September, and it rained for the majority of that time. Oh, sorry, did I say rain? I meant the sky poured buckets of water on the city. Our Away luggage performed beautifully, keeping our clothes safe and dry – the umbrellas that we bought hastily at a stand on the side of the road did not.
In Germany, on a day trip south from Munich to Schloß Neuschwanstein, we hiked up a mountain to the castle amidst an Autumn storm. The sky was kind to us, and gave us a picturesque view of the castle and the valley below from the Marienbrücke, despite the rain.
On a day cruise down the Rhine River from Frankfurt, we meandered past colorful villages and ancient castles in the rain.
London… well. London in April lived up to its rainy stereotype. We hid from storms amidst crowds on the tube, we listened to the drops patter against the windows of our magical room at the Georgian House Hotel.
Rain and I have a unique relationship. It connects memories for me, taking me back in time and space – to my childhood, when rain was more plentiful in LA, to the places Sohrab and I have traveled throughout our 9 years together. Maybe that’s why it makes me so happy.
Happy anniversary, love. Here’s to many more rain-soaked adventures.
YOUR TURN: How does the rain make you feel? Do you love cloudy days, or do you prefer the warm sun?
Psst! Did you know this is my very first Blogtober? I’m posting a new piece every day this October. Check out the rest here!