Pray for Rain

Does anyone know where I can buy a surprise day off?

Snow days were a hard thing to come by when I was a kid.

Eastern Washington state is no stranger to the snow. It’s commonplace from late fall to early spring. On any given day, it could snow an inch or it could snow ten inches. It didn’t matter. It was gonna snow. As a kid, I couldn’t help but be excited by the prospect of a snow day but I also wasn’t usually very optimistic watching the morning news. “Cheney School District:—tinge of hope—”open.” Sigh. We were always going to school.

There were a few snow days here and there but often it was because of, say, the power going out, instead of the snow itself. The only time I remember multiple “snow” days in a row was Ice Storm ‘96 and that wasn’t due to snow. That was due to ice.

In college, we were much more likely to have snow days. The college I attended—Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington—is on the west side of the state. Western Washington, in general, is not really known for snow. At least it wasn’t at that point. It’s mostly known for the constant gray and the never ending light mist that sticks to your skin. No, it doesn’t rain all the time in Seattle. But it is always damp. 

While I was in undergrad, it was a relatively well-known “fact” that the city didn’t actually own any snow plows. So, if snow deigned to fall aggressively from the heavens, the roads were pretty immediately impassable. Then the city would come to a stand-still and wait for snow plows from the surrounding area. On those days we, students, had to wait for no one. Erm, no professors trying to get to class. Because there wasn’t any. Because it was a snow day. 

I put “fact” in air quotes because looking back, I’m not sure if the lore about the snowplows was true. There certainly weren’t enough if there were any. I gave campus tours for prospective students of the university so, mostly, this was a fun fact for the tours. (Another fun fact: Bellingham got less average rainfall than Mobile, Alabama. …those are all the facts I currently remember and they are [counts in head] a few years old. [coughs.])

Because snow days were so rare when I was a kid, there was something extra magical about them as a college student. I’m not certain I did anything special with them. It’s likely I still had some sort of rehearsal I would trek to. Or maybe we would end up at a bar for some light day drinking. It didn’t matter. It was a welcome break in the middle of what was often a grueling academic/work/rehearsal schedule. It was a required day off. The weather made it so.

Hope for snow days largely dissipates again as an adult, I think. For some reason, you are expected to go to your job? You have to go to your job so you can continue to live in the world?? That seems fake but okay. It is a tenant of capitalism that if you can get to the place where you make money for others (first) and yourself (second), then you must go. All things must go! Especially if those things are workers. No time to frolic in the snow or sit inside was a warm hot chocolate (toddy) watching your favorite cozy movies.

Then, of course, during the pandemic when many of us worked from home, our relationship to work and time and home changed. For people who had previously worked in an office—which meant we could physically leave our work at the end of the day—our work set-up migrated to our homes. At home, you could leave the room at the end of your particular work hours but you couldn’t leave the knowledge behind that the computer that has your work apps downloaded were haunting that room and your boss or clients or coworkers or customers were sending more ghosts (emails) all the time. 

Some days were not “work” days, it’s true. The calendars said there were weekends and the regular ol’ corporate days off and sometimes “mental health days” but those were still full of work. They were full of the hypervigilance that comes with the constant fear of something unknown that could kill you and the existential load of collectively experiencing something that we, as a world, had never experienced all together before. There are weekends or days off now that are weekends or days off, sure. Or, rather, there is more likely to be actual time off. Between 2020 and uh, very recently (and still now, for some people) there were no days off.  

A day off that is not preordained on the calendar is a gift. With a true gift—not a bunny suit that you have to pretend to like—comes child-like wonder. It’s a surprise, an exciting one. When there is the possibility of a surprise day off, there is both the hope that it will happen and, if it does, the wonder of what free time could look like. A surprise day off is filled with certain promise that we often lose track of as we grow up.

So, when I woke up this morning and I heard the sound of medium strength rain falling on the sidewalk outside my window, I thought, “Oh, this is it.”

My weekend job is, as I have mentioned before, on Governors Island. It’s really a beautiful place to escape the city for a bit. While it has expanded in terms of food offerings, events, and exhibits over the years, it is still a national park. That means, there aren’t necessarily a ton of structures to go into and hide under when the weather takes a turn. There are buildings that are open to the public but usually only on specific days or at specific times of the year. The other buildings, mostly old army barracks and abandoned office spaces, are under construction, in need of serious repair, or full on condemned. (And haunted. They’re all haunted.) Unexpected rain doesn’t necessarily deter people from visiting. But morning rain and/or the constant threat that the sky will open up, usually does. If no people are on the island to view the wonderful art, then we will also likely not be on the island to man the galleries. 

When I woke up at 6ish to use the bathroom, it was already raining then. I smiled and went back to sleep. When I woke up to my alarm a couple of hours later, it was still raining. Before I started getting ready I checked my phone to see if there was a surprise. I had a little bit of hope. 

There was no surprise and by the time I finished getting ready for work, the rain had fully stopped.

Now it’s nice outside. There is a storm on the way early evening but that doesn’t help much. It’s freaking gorgeous, albeit humid, outside. Thus, here I sit. At work.

Sometimes, I think the universal “we” sort of people think that wanting a middle school snow day, a college flurry frolic, or an adult surprise day off means that you don’t like your job or whatever you had to do that particular day. I disagree. I like this job actually. I like to be around while people experience art. I like the people I work with. It’s pretty flexible and chill. That’s not what it’s about.

It’s about grasping at some child-like wonder in a world where it’s very hard to come by. Often, it’s been buried deep underground at the instruction of *gestures vaguely around* and it’s a surprise day off that equips you with a shovel to dig it up. To have an unplanned free day is, well, it's the dream. A literal dream. Because you can’t plan for it and don’t know when it will happen. But you think of it. It’s floating in your mind somewhere, playing your favorite song from when you had just turned 16 to beckon you in. 

Also, I could just really use a nap. 

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Okay, there are situations where haunting is okay actually.

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