No. 6 — The Sneaker Problem

I open the front door and check the sky first.

A little overcast, but no smell of rain.

I trust my nose, trust my legs, and head out for my early run.

About a third of the way through the course, it starts raining. No warning, no courtesy. Just rain.

I have no umbrella and no building to duck into. Everything is still shut at this hour.

What went through my head next is a little embarrassing to admit. Getting rained on doesn’t bother me, and neither does getting wet. My sneakers are the problem. Or more precisely, the smell they’ll give off once they dry.

In the middle of a downpour, I wasn’t worried about the weather. I was worried about odor. Here I am, fretting over my shoes while the rain comes down.

I duck under a tree. The sound of rain hitting the leaves above me is louder than it has any right to be. Standing there with nothing but a few leaves between me and the sky, not an umbrella, not a roof, I start to wonder what exactly I’m doing with my morning. The sky hadn’t looked like this when I left the house.

Then a small bird drops out from under the leaves, soaked through, and flies off in a hurry. It hadn’t bothered hiding at all. Probably on its way to breakfast. Rain or no rain, hunger doesn’t wait.

Watching it fly off so plainly into the wet, I feel a little foolish standing under a tree worrying about sneaker smell. The bird is thinking about survival. I’m thinking about foot odor.

The smell of wet leaves and grass rolls in, green and sharp. I could breathe that in all day. I can’t explain why that smell is fine and my own sneakers, not yet even wet through, already have me on edge.

While I wait out the rain, I spot a cat pressed into a narrow gap under a wall, sheltering the same as me. It looks over at me with something between annoyance and mild discomfort. Hungry, maybe. Or just tired of the whole situation. No way to know, but it doesn’t look like it’s thinking about anyone’s shoes.

Me under the tree. The cat under the wall. The bird cutting through the rain overhead. Three of us riding out the same shower, each in our own spot.

Somewhere in the middle of thinking all this over, the rain lets up.

Every step home feels heavier, the ground pulling at my shoes, and I move at some speed between a jog and a walk that doesn’t have a name. The second I get through the door, I’m already standing at the shoe rack, working out how to dry these things.

Still, today I’d rather hold on to the smell of wet leaves and grass than the one waiting for me in a day or two. That smell can wait. It always does.