Rain Explains

 

 

August 15, 2022

 

Greetings from the wet one,

 Some weeks ago, I was sitting outside having coffee, in that magic hour when the day arrives.  It was warm and then there was a little breeze which made it perfect.  I sat there after the coffee was gone and just felt the summer. 

 I heard a noise, not harsh, but loud, and while I thought about what it was, it explained itself.  It was the rain.  The wind freshened and a gust of hard rain hit the trees near me, and the grass, and made this rushing sigh, nearly a gasp.

 The rain explained in huge drops, making slapping noises on the wooden planks around me.  It poured into the open space above me in beads so large I could make out each one.  In a moment it was running over my skin, down my neck, soaking my shirt, my legs.  I didn't move, other than take my glasses off and set them on the table next to me. 

 I let the rain explain, and it told me about where it had been, how it had arrived in the clouds and rushed across the fields, barely able to contain itself. How the urge to be in the world again, to be in the trees, in the soil, to be connected with itself in the rivers, was so strong it felt like a passion, a desire, a sensual need, an intention born before all of us.

And then how it finally released, in voluptuous, ripe drops of wet, tumbling into the warm air, seeking, but recklessly, wildly, to meet its destiny.  It coated my skin with its need, its want, and made me feel all of it.  The coolness, the history of the water, the sound of each drop splashing onto me, and all around the rich earthy smell of rain.

 The rain didn’t invite questions, but somehow understood what I wondered.  It spoke of the loneliness of one drop and the overwhelming joy of the whirling, wheeling murmuration of wet, of life. It knew of my love for summer and felt like I needed to understand better what rain means to me.

 Rain knows it sends us inside, changes plans, dampens picnics, creates havoc in arroyos, invites sad songs, creates somber poetry.  It has a temper, which it regrets, but even so.  It told me that it is our companion, not an interloper, not a spoiler. 

 In those moments where I sat absorbing this, the rain connected me with our common life.  It led me to other stories.  To the soft sigh of rain that soothes me to sleep.  To the perfect staccato of drops on the roof of a tent.  To the brilliant sound of rain dancing between leaves, gurgling in the eves, splashing in puddles as it makes its way.

 The water closed my eyes and showed me the wall of rain coming across the prairie.  It led me to the waterfalls and brooks and the sound of water dancing on rocks, and leaping over things, full of life and fun and power. It showed me the patterns it made in rocks, the art it created on glass.  It reminded me of the soft mist showers, and of its cousins, the wisps of white that float just above the grass, longing to be more.

 The rain explained that some moments it is the not/rain that I care about, the easiest to take for granted.  Which I didn’t fully understand until later.  I waited as long as I could that morning, loathe to dry the moisture from my skin, also aware that the world looks sideways at people who don’t have the sense to get out of the rain.

 On another morning, not long after, I remembered the not/rain.  I was in the same place, in that same hour, as if nature had bookmarked it for me.  The sun was still far below the horizon, barely lighting the space above the trees.  The morning was darker because there were heavy clouds edging across the pale blue I usually enjoy.  I could feel them, pregnant with rain, felt that same urgency from the other morning.  I knew it would be wet soon.

 I first noticed the color in the pine needles at the edge of the grass, they were a brighter coral somehow.  The yard began to magically fill with light, but a new tint of morning, before the morning had arrived.  The light was impossibly rosy orange, shading the living green around me.

In that moment two fawns and their mother came into the yard, and became a new color too, their coats were pale salmon, somehow brighter than the usual summer tan.  They minced proudly across the pink tinged grass, like runway models.

 The sun was still deep below the horizon, but its light met the dark gray clouds above this tableau and made them blush, changed them to a mix of scarlet and tangerine.  The light, feeling generous and playful, spilled down into my yard and changed my world from dim green to brilliant apricot and fresh cantaloupe. 

 And then it was gone.  And the clouds pressed back against the false dawn, and the dark pushed the color out of the yard.  And I knew what the rain meant, that sometimes it gives us beauty by being not/rain.  The clouds that give shape to the sky, the drops that put color into arching beauty after a storm, it is all rain being creative and generous.  Our companion.

 Summer is lighting this morning, the sky clear and blue with the promise of brilliant warmth, and I am grateful.  But the lesson I have been given is not lost.  The rain is my friend, on the days it chooses to join me here on earth and in the moments it stays above, waiting, and allows other beauty to exist for me.

 

Hope this finds you with palms up,

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2022  David Smith