One true love

Or How I Ruined My Favourite Shoes...

When I was busy being slightly out of control in my final year of highschool, my parents became concerned that I wasn't focusing on school (they were right) and that I needed incentive to study (which I wasn't going to do). They came up with the idea that if I got an OP1 (the highest) I would get $1000, $500 for an OP2, $250 for an OP3 and so on and so forth. This did not factor into my decision making at all, and I didn't do homework, didn't do study, and didn't actually try when it came to my exams. But through some ridiculousness I got an OP2 (a mere smigeon off a 1 - if only I'd actually read my Physics textbook once!!) and was awarded my $500 and knew exactly what I was going to spend it on...



8 hole DrMartens boots in navy. I LOVED these shoes, I still love them. And handing over that $174 was one of the biggest thrills in my 17 years because I had never paid so much for an item of clothing before. I would put them on and sink into my personnae, into Phil and loved them so much. I even bought the special wax for them to keep them protected. I broke them in until they moulded my feet perfectly and the creases made them melt against my feet. I clumped off to uni in them, and even though even the Arts students were starting to move on into Jesus Sandal territory I didn't care. I lvoed them so much.

When I was at college most of the girls were into wearing revealing clothes, stubbies, and jewelled thongs or massies (masseur sandals). Then there I would be wearing my eclectic op shop makeovers (I would buy retro clothes then alter)/ black pants with ultra short 60s dress over the top/the corset I managed to pick up in a sale and my navy 8 hole Docs. I honestly didn't care that I didn't dress the same as everyone else. I didn't care that my hair was black and waist length when everyone else was blonde, I was not a conformist even then. Sometimes I wanted to be, but I didn't have the funds or the stamina to actually be like everyone else. And I was still in the throes of my love affair with my Docs. So odd I was. There were exceptions of course - wearing a firetruck red flowing satin, backless, plunging neckline Size 10 dress to the ball may have been one of them...

But one day the sanctity of the Jenn-Doc relationship was tested by the other love that she had had since childhood...

For as long as I can remember, there has been one thing that has excited my soul, pricked my consciousness and lifted me to spiritual highs. I smell it and a shiver runs down my spine. I see it in the distance and I get butterflies. I hear it and it rumbles through me until I'm almost purring with anticipation. But when it touches me, caresses me, and I can taste it cold and fragrant... I unleash something primal inside me. From sunshowers, to thunderstorms to winter drizzle, I love it all - but summer rain beats hard in my heart.

So much of the time when it rains you will see people huddling under eaves or angling umbrellas to keep the rain away - or complaining inside about the dreary weather. And sometimes I will commiserate - but I am always afraid that the sparkle and snap in my eyes gives it away. But this is a story about my Docs, or was, and I need to relate it back :)

One afternoon at college the storm had been building for hours. Everyone was walking around with sweat beaded on their upper lips and foreheads, glowing Qld pink and complaining about the air that was so gravid it felt like breathing under water. With my heavy dark hair and enclosed shoes I guess I should have been more uncomfortable than most, but wet heat has never really bothered me as much as others. It built and built all afternoon - we were all watching TV together, the assorted couples, my then current boyfriend, my now husband, other ringins etc - ostensibly trying to escape the heat by sitting in front of several fans.

The thunder started to rumble as the sky got darker, and occasional flashes of sheet lightning would light up the sky. Then it began in earnest - forked blue white lightning slashing across the sky, violent thunder that rung in your ears and then the rain. Torrential, bucketing rain, that fell in sheets instead of drops. We watched it from the TV room for a while before I was drawn outside. At first I was timid and sat on the step getting some spray, but covered slightly by the eaves and not out in it. But as I sat there, so close to being part of the storm I found myself unable to stay away. I walked out into the rain and became immediately drenched. My clothes plastered to my body, my hair sodden and curling wildly, water running in rivers down my neck and cleavage and pooling in my shoes. For a while I stood there - glorying in the wildness, alone and elemental.

I had always assumed that being out in a storm would be frightening or cold or miserable or just plain uncomfortable, but there in the thrashing rain I felt alive more than I ever had in my life. I didn't notice my wet clothes, I didn't notice my shoes becoming saturated, I only noticed how alive I felt and I started dancing in the rain. Obviously I looked somehow appealing in spite of looking like a drowned rat because gradually some of the others filtered out into the torrent. But in that sheer emancipated joy I was alone. The rain literally brought me to life. My boyfriend was one of the later ones pulled out into the rain, and although he was not given to public displays of affection he pulled me to him and kissed me in the rain - attracted he later told me to the pure joy that radiated from me.


Unfortunately that storm left two marks on me - the first, related to the above, the drenching of the softened leather of my beloved shoes was not kind, and as the weather the next day was hot and relatively dry, they cracked as they dried out which made me feel a second of regret and remorse. But they were still wearable, and even yet there are times I pull them out because they still invoke my 17 year old, hippy, op shop wearing self.

The second mark is harder to define. Since that day, although I had loved storms and rain before, I cannot ignore a storm. Whether it is drumming me to sleep, calling me out into it to dance and frolick and play, washing me with its cleansing coolness or invoking a primal fire low in my belly I have to follow its tune like a child after the piper of Hamlin. I secretly glory in the days when I don't have an umbrella and am *forced* to walk out and again feel my clothes become moulded to my body. To feel cold tears on my cheeks and for my hair to grow ringlets that are never normally there, for my eyes to dance with golden sparkles, and my belly to curl with longing.

I love the rain.