The Weight of Water

I keep a small, rusted tin box in the back of my drawer that holds a single, water-stained ribbon from a childhood dress. It is stiff now, the color bled out by time and damp, but when I touch it, I am transported back to a summer storm that turned the garden into a river. We were so small then, convinced that the rain was a curtain we could pull back to reveal a different world. We did not mind the cold or the way the mud clung to our skin; we only cared that the sky had opened up to wash the dust from the leaves. As we grow older, we learn to seek shelter, to fear the damp, and to protect our belongings from the elements. Yet, there is a lingering ache for that time when we walked through the downpour without a thought for the ruin it might bring. Is it possible to find that same untroubled joy once we have learned how easily things are lost to the rain?

Lavi Dhurve has captured this exact feeling in the beautiful image titled He Came through the Rain. It reminds me that even when the world is grey and heavy, there is a light that refuses to be dampened. Does this boy’s smile make you want to step out into the storm as well?