I remember going for hikes in the rain when I was a little girl, and I really liked the way everything sounded inside the hood of my raincoat. There was this sort of magical effect added both to sounds I made and sounds that came from outside my hood. For some reason, it’s hard to describe childhood sense memories, even when I re-experience them as an adult.
I was walking down the street today in my full length sleeping bag coat, which I love way more than I expected to. I decided I could start wearing it early this year since there were “flurries” yesterday. It was pretty windy, so I had my hood up and the neck snaps fastened so it would stay in place. I also had the thing snapped all the way down to the bottom to keep my legs warm. This makes my stride a little shorter, but it’s totally worth it.
As I thumped along down Fort Washington from school back to my house, something about the rhythm of my shorter stride and the quality of sounds within my hood reminded me of taking hikes in the rain as a little girl. The environment around me could not have been any more different from Mt. Tam, all traffic and sirens and concrete and 35 degree weather, but the feeling was there. It made me really excited to come home again next week.
