I love umbrellas. Like, really really love them. When I was young, I was a flowergirl in a wedding where we carried white parasols (with a lace fringe) instead of flowers. I loved that parasol, and somehow that parasol became my parapluie. I started taking it out in the rain.
Okay, and sometimes I'd use it when it just looked like it was about to start to rain, or when I felt a single rain drop.
I never got over that love of hiding under an umbrella. Maybe it would have grown old, had I lived somewhere rainier and with less of a vicious wind, a wind that unfailingly flips your umbrella inside-out. But maybe it resulted from the excitement of seeing the raindrops and hearing them patter against that fabric roof above your head, but being protected from actually getting wet. Maybe it was strongly connected to my love of hiding in couch-cushion-and-blanket forts, where I would spend hours reading and watching the light filter through the blankets. I have the same "fun secret fort" feeling when I live in a tent as when I use an umbrella.
Maybe it's because of all the Mary Poppins associations.
One thing that the SAD lamp has returned to me is my love of rain. While it still annoys me when it's rained for weeks straight, (and walking and bussing are going to be inconvenient) a good rain shower thrills me. It's satisfying. And rain means umbrellas, rain boots with clown faces on the soles, yellow raincoats, and splashing in puddles.
I'd forgotten all that, once my brain became wired to associate rain with darkness with sadness.
(I think, now that I own more teapots than I can reasonably use, I'm going to start collecting umbrellas.)
5 comments:
The LWI for my birthday this year got me a Cirque du Soleil umbrella (super bright and cheerful, 4 sides, looks kind of like a little circus tent). It makes rainy days SO much more fun!
Wow! And it just looks like a circus tent, and doesn't have any of the scary Cirque du Soleil performers on it? That would be fun.
Mine only has polka-dots.
You love umbrellas - but my umbrella is my nemesis. A bad thing for living in England.
Is it even possible for my umbrella to be blown inside out, its struts twisted and separating from the fabric and the whole thing squashed flat against the handle all at the same time? I think something quantum must be involved. Needless to say, the poor thing is just barely clinging to life, though I'm hanging on to it just to see how much more gale-force weather it can take.
How much destruction can an umbrella suffer and still function according to its intended purpose? Either it'll end up with some hitherto undiscovered use or as a piece of conceptual art.
Gramsey, I recommend checking into Fulton umbrellas. They're a British company, and so far mine has stood up to the wind as none of my previous umbrellas have.
Personally, I always use those ones made for picnic tables. They stand up to anything.
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