#4 If You Count Only The Sunny Hours, What do you Do with the Rainy ones?

In my second year of university, I took an 8 AM French class in the Old Arts Building. On the south side of the building was a sundial that had "Count only the sunny hours" inscribed on its surface.   Twice a week I passed that sundial, mostly in the dark non sunny hours, and I'd spend the rest of the walk trying to figure out what that meant. Is that a directive for a good life? Directions on how to read a sundial? Some Keatsean thing I should have read? Do hours spent in French classes taken in the non sunny winter dark count?  Count toward what? I spent a lot of time thinking about that sundial that semester. Apparently I am still mulling over this phrase because it kept coming to mind while in Stockholm this week. 

Most of Sunday was anything but sunny.  When we arrived in Stockholm on the boat, it was beautifully warm and sunny. After checking into our hotel and settling in, we changed into shorts and tshirts and took an ancient creaking lift to the main floor. When we got outside, it was cold enough that we went upstairs to change into warmer clothes and fetch a jacket. Down the creaking lift again. This time when we went outside, it was raining. Avoiding the lift, I ran upstairs to get our rain jackets and down the stairs to see it was raining harder. We started walking and within a block we were wet. Within 2 blocks, we were soaked. What do you do?

Well... I had an inner dialogue that went something like this. I'm cold. It's not that bad. I'm cold and wet and the wind's picking up. But it's pretty and gosh darn it this rain jacket is pretty waterproof. True but my jeans aren't waterproof and they're soaked. What's a little water? My feet are wet... oh why, oh why did I wear Mary Janes? Well, the Mary Janes will dry faster than your other ones. I feel like Eeyore. You sound like Eeyore-- you really need to buck up, you're in Sweden! Enjoy it. You're right. Yes I am. But I'm really cold and wet. Yeah, you do have a point. What do we do?

Dale and I had just two days in Stockholm and one was getting devoured by the unpleasant rain. I was really trying to make the most of it but the rain was making that quite difficult.  seeing more than a few feet ahead was difficult and we just kept dodging umbrellas. We finally decided to just go into the closest museum and get out of the deluge. I'm not sure it would have been the museum either of us would have picked but it was right there and it had a cafe for lunch. The museum was interesting enough and the lunch was quite nice. Still, I think we were both regretting we couldn't do our favourite thing:  walk in what looked like a great city.  My brain kept reminding me 'make the most if it, make the most of it....' But i needed constant reminders. After a few hours in the museum, we left and found the deluge was over and it was just a steady rain. 

Walking seemed a little more do-able and we ended up covering a lot of ground. I took a few photos ( I discovered later they were all quite badly composed and out of focus) and convinced myself that I'd had a nice time in Stockholm. And I did. The deluge started again about 45 minutes away from our hotel and we sloshed silently back. We went to what turned out to be a great Thai restaurant in part because it was close to our hotel. I didn't want to admit defeat and confess I was disappointed with the day but I was. Or maybe more accurately with myself. I wondered if I could have done better with the rain. A true traveller, it seems to me, should have been able to rise above mundane things like deluges and wet shoes and, to quote the Mary Tyler Moore theme, "suddenly make it all seem worthwhile." Had I done that? I'm not sure I did. And that bothered me.

The next day, sun started pouring into our room about 4:30. We started walking early and proceeded to walk and walk and walk. We covered some of the same terrain as the day before yet today it was glorious. We were able to stop and look at details, have a coffee on a sidewalk cafe, wander winding streets, linger beside the gorgeous arrangements of tulips, see and follow the magical majestic horses on their way to the changing of the guard, look at colours of buildings, pause and take well-composed shots of the beautiful city views and just walk and walk and walk. Even after walking for 5 or more hours, we walked to a different island for dinner and loved every minute of it. It was a wonderful day in part because it was beautiful and sunny and we coukd walk. Suddenly our rainy Sunday didn't seem as disappointing. 

"Count only the sunny hours," the sundial tells us. But what does that mean for traveling? What does that mean for those inevitable rainy days? Do we not count those hours? It's easy to have a wonderful traveling day when the sun is out and the sky is halcyon. Maybe the real test for travelers is how you deal with the not sunny days, how you turn disappointments into something bigger and better, how you make those non sunny hours count. This is something I'll work on.

Below are pictures from the sunny day in Stockholm since the others are a blurry rainy mess.