Should you stand under a tree in the rain?

It is a rainy English day and the beginning of a very long season of rain. It will rain a few times a week now progressing to more like 90% of the time by January. Sometimes you can prepare for things. If you live down south during the summer months in the US you get air conditioning if at all possible, make sure your ice maker works and have a plan to get to a large body of water be it the local pond or backyard pool. It seems that here I ought to have a plan for the rain. Umbrellas and waterproof raincoats (not just the water resistant ones) should be on my priority list. I drove my children up to the train station after we all had listened to the news that it would rain all day and verified this looking out the window. Yet everyone entered the car to go to the train station without a rain coat. It is only when we picked up another group of friends with raincoats that it occurred to me that my kids had no common sense and I had been a negligent mother. To redeem myself I ran home-grabbed the water resistant coats and got them to the children before they hopped on their train. Maybe subconsciously we figure denial is best.

There are many words to describe rain--soft, drizzle, lashing, pelting, pouring. I have to say that we are between soft and lashing today and as I walked the dogs it was only pleasantly moist. The first thing I passed was a muddy pit that is usually a small watering hole brimming with water and tadpoles. It hasn't been like that since April and suddenly the rain felt good. As the soft rain moved to lashing I walked beneath some trees. A slight breeze stirred the leaves who had been collecting rain for the past 5 minutes. They tipped just enough to make major drops dump upon me. I think there should be a name for this phenomenon. Dumping? No the picture that conjures is smelly. A waterfall perhaps? It wasn't that bad. Drenching? True but not poetic. Since I am in London I should sound more polite. Cascading seems to fit. The rain cascaded down upon me. You know the rest.

You would think there are obvious easy answers to some questions in life. But when it comes to the rain I think you should face it right on as hiding from it usually means you get wet anyway-at least if you stand under a tree.