"To Walk on a Rainy Day at Essex Meadows"

 While rain has abated, at least for the moment, Spring here in southeastern Connecticut has been abnormally wet, or at least it seems that way. This essay was inspired by one of those rainy mornings.

 

Sydney M. Williams

 

More Essays from Essex

“To Walk on a Rainy Day at Essex Meadows”

May 17, 2025

 

“Be still, sad heart! And cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.”

                                                                                                                The Rainy Day, 1841

                                                                                                                Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

 

In her 1956 essay, “Help Your Child to Wonder,” Rachel Carson wrote: “A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.” Walking through a rain-drenched woods when one is ten may be okay, but now in my mid-80s I prefer to keep my feet dry.

 

Poets have long celebrated the beauty of a rainy day. Langston Hughes in “April Rain Song:” “Let the rain kiss you/Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops;” and Emily Dickinson in “Summer Shower:” “A drop fell on the apple tree/Another on the roof;/A half dozen kissed the eaves/And made the gables laugh.” And who can forget Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain: “What a glorious feeling; I’m happy again;/I’m laughing at clouds so dark above./The sun’s in my heart and I’m ready for love.”

 

I get tempted, but with feet housed in rubbers and a slicker over my shirt I hesitate at the door. I recall walking with my wife – then my girlfriend – in Boston in Spring of ‘62, skipping along Commonwealth Avenue. Nurtured by rain, we were filled with love. 

 

But now I dither. Not all walks in the rain are as glorious as the poets would have us believe. In August 1973, I took my oldest son – then age six – on his first hike in the White Mountains. We left Pinkham Notch in a summer storm. Our goal was Madison Spring Hut. We walked along the Great Gulf Trail to the Madison Gulf Trail. By the time we arrived at the Hut, 6.5 miles later, we were soaked, but happy. The next day, as we hiked the Gulfside Trail to Mt. Washington, the clouds parted and the sun appeared. As we sat looking down into Great Gulf, I remember saying: “Son, someday this will all be yours!” And it has been, in the sense that he and his wife have taken their children on hikes along those same trails.

 

Essex Meadows sits on a hundred acres of lawns, fields, woods and a swamp – the Mud River Swamp, where primordial and avian life abound. As well, the property abuts The Preserve, a thousand acres of conservation land. Trails meander through the fields and woods. They wander across fields and through woods, allowing one to stay healthy while communing with nature. On a sunny day, there are fewer places more beautiful. But when it rains? The final lines of Shel Silverstein’s poem “Rain” come to mind: “So, pardon the crazy thing I just said - /I’m just not the same since there’s rain in my head.”

 

At Essex Meadows we have an alternative. The building, which holds 180 apartments, includes about a mile of hallways on three floors. The hallways, connected with five elevators and nine staircases, are lined with residents’ art collections. When it rains we have the pleasure of viewing paintings and photos, and the joy of meeting friends and neighbors, similarly occupied. So, we walk on and worry not about puddles.