Five Inches

"It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys."

     Antonine de Saint-Exupery

I have some pretty terrible memories because of rain. One of the worst is when I was nine, my mom made me sleep in jeans, sweatshirt, and tennishoes because we were under a slight tornado watch. I guess she didn’t want me to be naked if a tornado took our roof off. The other memories tend to pile up when I think of having to trudge through campus in a downpour, because college professors don’t have souls and they never cancel class. And I think they just find it amusing to see us walk in drenched, and pull out our laptops with water damage, and make us sit through an hour and fifteen minutes of freezing note taking that could easily be better accomplished over a podcast.

All this to say, yesterday a flash flood came across Tupelo.. but it was much more entertaining than walking to class, or miserably laying in bed with my entire wardrobe on. The weather channel said that we got five inches of rain yesterday, and I embraced every drop. Disregard the complaining I did in the previous paragraph, and believe me when I say that I love rain. There is something so…attractive..about a dark sky and the sound of water pounding against a roof. But yesterday, rather than laying in bed and listening to that calming sound, I put on my rain boots from ninth grade, went to Walgreens and bought a disposable camera, parked my car in downtown Tupelo, and began shooting. I literally ran around downtown, across Tupelo’s railroad tracks, through people’s backyards..all in the lightning and rain.

Before I make myself sound like one of those cool people that does cool things every day, I must be honest and say that this is the most exciting thing I’ve done in weeks.  But it was quite fulfilling. Even though they are no Keegan Gibbs (urban photographer) piece of brilliance, this project made a great new memory for a rainy day. 

P.S. I apologize for the amount of commas I always use. I have an obsession with clauses.