Grammar Woman Walking

Grammar Woman Walks in the Rain

Rain fell on me, never on I.

“A gentle, refreshing rain fell on the dogs and I . . .” No, that’s wrong. It’s not “the rain fell on . . . I, it’s the rain fell on . . . me.” Try again, Grammar Woman, I said to myself. “A gentle, refreshing rain fell on the dogs and me as we took our early morning walk.”

Summer heat and humidity mean earlier and earlier walks, but even at 7:45, it was getting steamy. When the rain started falling, my first instinct was to bolt. But to where? I was at least a half-mile from home and had a 50+-pound dog on a leash at the end of each wrist. There would be no bolting, unless one of them spied a rabbit.

It seems almost hokey zen to write these words, but they’re true: I decided to simply embrace the rain and continue our walk, rather than sprint the rest of the way.

Cool raindrops dotted my shoulders and arms as we continued toward home.

Why are we humans so reluctant to walk in the rain? Why do we feel the need to dash to the nearest shelter? I considered just walking, walking in the rain.

It was then that today’s story began forming: “A gentle, refreshing rain . . .” It was then that I changed into Grammar Woman Walking as I corrected pronouns with the red pen in my brain. The rain falling on “I” became the rain falling on “me,” and the words I now write formed before I arrived home to put them on the page.

Grammar Woman writing, after walking.

As I sit on the porch, coffee at my elbow, I look outside my covered space and see that once again, a cooling rain is falling, but not on me, and certainly not on “I.”