Singing in the Rain

I blame Gene Kelly. It's all his fault. Really. Him and his dimples and awesome dancing steps. And yes, his singing in the rain.

I was but a young child when I first watched his movie, "Singing in the Rain", and it was then that I fell in love with singing, dancing, and yes, the rain. I vividly remember taking baths in the rain as a tween, loving the rain drops that fell hard on my head. In high school, I even choreographed a dance number on the movie's theme song as a requirement for physical ed. Umbrellas and all. We got a 96 as grade, as I recall. When I was already in the university, I walked under the rain so many times and went home drenched. My mom would give me one look and ask with resignation, "You walked in the rain again?"

Because of Gene Kelly, I always welcomed the rain. Well, save for the occasional thunders that came along with it. For most of my life, I had brontophobia, fear of thunder. I only got over it when my daughter was born, because I had to feign courage for her and consequently no longer had to make pretenses. Anyway, since I almost always liked the rain, I never got used to using an umbrella. Thus, getting wet whenever there would be storms. Back in Manila, there were quite a lot of those. Once, I even had to walk most of Taft Avenue (a very, very long road) under the rain.

Nowadays, however, as much as I still like the rain, I prefer to be indoors when it pours. Just like this morning. It was a bit chilly, so I snuggled under a blanket and drank a cup of hot coffee while watching the rain from the window.

Did I ever sing and dance in the rain? Well, I'm no Gene Kelly or even Debbie Reynolds at that. But, yes, in my head, I have more than once sang THE song while walking in the rain with a somewhat silly, big grin on my face.