For the first time today I rode my bike home from work in a moderately heavy rainfall.  Up until now rain and wind have been the two weather forecasts that have kept me from biking to and from work; today, though, I didn’t pay much attention to the evening weather predictions and rode to work with dry pleasant weather, none the wiser to the inevitable rain of my evening commute.  As I saw the rain build throughout the day, I was unprepared for what biking in the rain might look like, but after the journey I can say that it was a rewarding experience that will make me think twice next time I head for the ‘el’ because of a chance of rain.

On my ride home, I was thinking about the shift in many people’s perspective of weather as they age.  As a child, rain is sometimes seen as an opportunity; rain means puddles, excitement, an adventure waiting to happen.  That same person, after twenty years, views rain in the opposite light:  rain means puddles, a nuisance, an obstacle through which one must drudge.  I was reminded then of the Romantic period of English literature, and the interest then in the loss on a connection with the natural world that comes with age.

In “Ode:  Intimation of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” William Wordsworth writes:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
            To me did seem
         Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;-
      Turn wheresoe’er I may,
         By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

This passage laments the loss of a wonder that the natural world once inspired, a lament that is echoed by the Romantics throughout their writings.  While their poetry in many ways is not appurtenant to a contemporary audience, I have often found the Romantics’ reflections to be a simple but inspired reminder that despite the familiarity we may have developed with it, nature once was a source of wonder, and that it’s important to reflect on the innocence with which so many view nature as a child, lest a rainy day keep us from an opportunity, an adventure waiting to happen.

I’ll leave you now with another poem from Wordsworth which optimistically outlines a sustained awareness of one’s connection with and sense of wonder inspired from nature:

My heart leaps up

My heart leaps up when I behold
   A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a Man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
   Or let me die!
The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.