Rain

When it's rains, I get wet smell the new air heavy with water, clouds and damp. Every good Arcata-born-and-raised girl knows how to deal with rain. We know it won't last.

Much.

Okay, so it will.

I mean, really, this is Humboldt. We have three seasons: completely wet, mostly wet, and damp. Four words: 42. Inches. Per. Year.

Like eskimos with their forty words for snow, we have a hundred for rain. Spitting, sprinkling, misting, raining, damp, pouring, sheeting, sleeting, dumping, buckets, splashes...words for  big drops, little drops, barely-there drops.

We're snobbish in our definition of rain.

"That's not rain," we'll say. "It's just spitting."

"That's not rain," we'll accuse. "That's sprinkling."

"That's not rain," we'll smile wisely. "It's just damp."

We know the smell of rain, the scent of wet to come. The exact way pavement smells after the first rain and the last rain. We can eyeball clouds and know that they're too high, too low, too fluffy, too soupy, too whatever to hold rain.

We know when it'll be a squall and when it's here for days. We know if it's too cold to rain or just right.

I didn't own an umbrella until I was 18 and unprepared for record rainfall at my advertisted-9-inches-a-year central California school. We don't do umbrellas in Humboldt. Parkas, raincoats, plastic bags, are where it's at.

I didn't know rainboots were "cool" until I was 20 and wandering around my college campus after a (my definition) light sprinkle and every other girl was wearing rainboots in polka dot, plaid, neon colors, zebra stripes, what-have-you. In Arcata, after you grow out of your hated childhood pair — you know the kind that pulls over your regular shoes? — you suffer or get sensible, waterproof sneakers.

When we were in high school, we'd wear skirts and sandals on rainy days and bring an extra sweater for our legs. Bare legs dried faster than jeans and kept you warmer. Better cold feet than damp jeans all day. In high school, you judged how important it was to have your textbook in class versus how important it was to stay dry — as your locker car was in the back parking lot and a 5 minute walk or 3 minute run.

We Arcatians know that running doesn't keep you dryer in the rain. You might feel better about it, but you get just as wet. Raincoats, now those keep you dry. Staying out of the rain? Even better.

In Arcata, you can tell the people who were raised here and have lived here for a while by how they handle the rain. The people dashing through the rain, wearing fancy boots and desperately trying to fuss with their umbrella — those aren't locals.

The person in the cords with the worn knees and the fancy parka with the hood pulled up, wearing heavy duty hiking boots that are most likely waterproof and lined with a sturdy pair of wool socks and walking reasonably but determinedly through the torrent?

That person's local.

I'd bet a hundred bucks on it.

YESTERDAY: 5 miles, Tempo