100 Business Days Out: Day 76 - Rainy Day Books

The rains finally came today. It has been nearly a month without rain and finally today the clouds burst open with buckets of torrential rain. You could almost hear the ground and the plants sucking in and celebrating its arrival. For us, it was a forced inside, break the routine kind of day. No beach for sure and the storms were bad enough that it didn't seem prudent to venture out too far from the house. So we confined ourselves and looked for other ways to occupy our time. I caught up on some very tardy response emails and phone calls and as chance would have it, I was finishing up one book (which had been laborious) and was beginning another hard read and it was just the day for it. The only thing disturbance was the clinking and kerplunking of the rain drops on the window sills. I don't know how long I got, but it was over a couple of hours of just sitting and uninterrupted reading. As I reflected on this, I realized that it has been a long time since I have had one of these days. When you live in Northern California the rainy days only come November - April and if you work then you have to look for one of these days to come on a weekend and of course the weekends are too busy so you never take the time to just sit and read a book. But, today, here on the east coast where it can rain in the summer, I did and it was great. Someone said (and I am butchering even the paraphrase) "that no boat takes you as far off shore and into the sea as a good book". It is so true. There are times that my mind gets more clearing and I am able to shove more mind "stuff" to the back, because I am engrossed in a great read. A typical year for me of reading (I catalog every book I read each year) is somewhere around 20 books. This year will be higher and even better because the "density" of the reading is much greater. Reading as we all know is great for the mind, the vocabulary and the thought process. But, it's also a gift to be not forgotten and a perfect way to just wile away a rainy day.