Imagine a secret society devoted to rain, rooted in the rich, sodden soil of the Pacific Northwest. Members recognize one another by the soaked state of their outerwear, hair plastered to glistening foreheads, eyes wild with the prophetic water that they invite to run down their faces. They exchange secret handshakes with slick hands and wrinkled fingertips. They gather in cabins moldering beside rivers, where rain infiltrates through a fallen roof and slides down walls padded with moss. They build statues of rain gods out of umbrellas and dance around them as the torrents flail them into saturated ecstasy.
If there were such a secret order of rain mages, Matt Love would be its founder. His latest book, Walking In Rain, is a gem left outdoors to be polished by the relentless, celebratory water of our region.
Through diary entries, prayers, and polemics, Mr. Love challenges the negativity that pervades descriptions of Western Oregon rain. In addition to being a writer and publisher, Mr. Love is a long-time educator, and some of his diary entries recount the results of sending his students out into the rain to inspire their writing. His respect for his students shines through these vignettes (perhaps a better image would be “soaks through”) as he entices them to immerse themselves in nature and life, especially those elements of life that aren’t Hallmark-soft.
Mr. Love doesn’t just rehabilitate rain, and he certainly doesn’t apologize for it—two moves I often notice Pacific Northwest residents making with visitors from drier areas. (“I know it rains a lot here, but it’s really pretty…”) Instead, he extols the centrality of rain to this ecosystem and its ability to sort the hardy and resourceful from the delicate complainers. In an extended meditation on rain versus sun, he declares, “I want to overthrow the hegemony of the sun” (p. 28). He proceeds to ally rain to heroes, rebels, and artists and consigns the sun to a conforming herd: “Rain is wanton, exciting, the sun constant, boring. Rain gallivants, the sun merely beams. Rain inebriates, the sun makes you drowsy” (p. 29). He associates the sun with people who destroy environments and societies, from gun enthusiasts (“Rain ruins guns, the sun keeps powder dry”—p. 29), to real-estate developers who demolish landscapes (“Developers despise rain; they love the sun”—p. 30), to the founders of hierarchal religions that glut themselves on inequality: “None of the cruel, paternal, monotheistic religions ever originated where it rains a lot. They sprung from men, deserts and heat” (p. 32).
Rain urges Mr. Love to engage in luscious damp-fueled fantasies. In one of these, he invites readers to become part of his imagined First Church of Rain: “My church would worship rain, read rain as scripture, and taste sacramental rain from shot glasses” (pp. 21-22). In another, he recalls an epic Civil War football game where no one scored because they were playing in a deluge: “Rain made both teams gloriously inept and made sports history that afternoon” (p. 45). In tones alternately exuberant and prophetic, he honors the glory of rain and dismisses its detractors, whether they’re disgruntled, umbrella-toting local or complaining tourists who stay in their hotel rooms for their whole vacation.
This book is for everyone who lives in this rainforest region and loves it, as well as for “outsiders” who are open-hearted enough to reconsider their fear of precipitation. I encourage you to read it before rain-hating relatives come to visit so you can declaim choice quotes as they’re shaking out their umbrellas on the front steps. In the meantime, wipe the moisture from your face, put your wet feet up, and bow your head at the altar of rain with Matt Love.
This is the most perceptive review of any book I have ever written. Thank you Margaret for teaching me about the rain. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Matt, I’m so delighted that the review resonated with you, and I appreciate having had the chance to celebrate rain with you.
I was thinking of you yesterday as I was riding my tandem trike back home with my husband and daughter. The ride takes an hour and a half with so many riders, a passenger, and our stuff, and during that time, I had the opportunity to savor many types of rain: the diagonal type, the gentle misty type, and the type that rolls down your face in the most soothing way. I lament how people who don’t appreciate rain assume it’s all the same. That narrow thinking is reflected in how rain appears in movies–for example, the perpetual deluge of Bladerunner. Rain is never as monotonous and characterless as that! I did like the images of water running down damp walls and saturating the plaster, though–much like the way saplings grow up through abandoned houses that nature reclaims. Rain is the ultimate recycler!
Thanks Margaret and Matt!
I must confess (as a northwest native and professed rain lover) that I don’t always get called out by the rain. But once I’m there, gratitude washes over me and frizzes my hair and moistens my skin. Just yesterday while heading out to take a hike with the pup, I started noticing rain drops sliding down my windshield and I began to grumble. “I’m not prepared. I don’t have the right gear on. Why didn’t I think to bring a hat or hood?” The beautiful thing is, rain always seems like it’s falling harder when I’m driving against it. But then I’m outside, protected by the woods even while the tree limbs drip. And presently I’m up on top of a mountain in the middle of a cloud, with zero visibility but the nearest color drenched plants — that only look that way against the particular silver of the inside of a cloud — and I am as happy and content as is possible to be.
So count me in. I’m a member.
Thank you sharing your beautiful rain experience, Jennifer. You’re truly a part of the Apostolate of Rain!
A few days ago, Seth, Luthien, and I were taking our lunch-hour walk and met a delightful elder who’d lived in Cannon Beach for decades. The wind was gusting, the rain was slanting, and she was joyfully tramping through puddles with her dog. She cheerfully instructed tourists in how rain gear makes all the difference for enjoying our moist location, and the dog was happily developing that wet-canine odor we know and love. 🙂
At almost 15 months, Luthien never complains about rain; she loves to be outdoors in any weather, as long as she’s not chilled. Like fear of insects, fear of rain is a learned behavior, and she’s not going to learn it from us!
Yes, gear makes it all work. There’s a beautiful book by Farley Mowat called the People of the Deer about tribal people in the interior of Northern Canada. The homes weren’t heated because the people wore clothing that basically became their shelter. I often think of that book when I’m out in the elements here with just the right clothing on to be comfortable with whatever’s coming down from the sky.
I’m glad that Luthien gets to learn from the two of you!
Though I don’t go out splashing much, I am deeply grateful for the rain. I need it to feel right and sane. It steadies me somehow and it makes the sun days luxurious. Constant blue sky and sunshine is too hard on me; is somehow too harsh. I fantasize about a rain festival and a vocabulary of rain that includes over 50 words of description. sideways rain, wet rain, real Oregon rain, soaking mist rain, big drop rain, big drop rain with dry spaces…….
I remember talking about developing a rain vocabulary when we were at Fire Mountain,Barbara. My favorite term, that my rain loving grandpa often used, was dry rain. I’d say right now we’re having a drenching rain. Or maybe it’s a frog rain.
Thanks for joining in the rain-versation, Barbara. I feel the same way about unrelenting sunshine. I enjoy our Oregon Coast variety because it has character: inflected by clouds and the possibility of rain, with a sky made more vibrant by the promise of moisture. When I visited Southern California once, on the other hand, the constant sunniness wasn’t cheerful or pleasant. It had a bland, plastic quality, like the cheesy, smiling pseudo-perfection of a Barbie doll (that quintessential SoCal resident).
Thank you, Matt, for honoring rain with your delightful book.