Passing Rain
Monday, September 29th, 2008
First night under the electric blanket and the windows are open, which is usually cause for a sore throat. The grass on the front lawns are wet with moisture from the morning’s rain and now late-evening dew.
Sunshine didn’t break through until almost mid-day, and tonight, with the overcast weather burned away, I’m thinking about how I used to lay in bed on rainy days and pass the time reading or listening to music – really listening to it with deep concentration and imagination.
We lived at the bottom of a big hill and the water would come spilling down the gutter as broad as a small creek and 10 times more powerful. Our neighbors would leave their gas lights on late into the day, which made it easier to see what direction the rain slanted. I’d sit at the window and watch the leaves turn dark and water drip on exposed roots, dot by dot, coloring the dirt in. Then, I’d eventually give up on the scenery eventually lose myself in whatever weather was depicted in the book I was reading.
Tonight, as I fade off to sleep in warm blankets, my thoughts will be on those sleepy, lazy days when I had nothing better to do than read or listen to someone else’s lyrics purely for pleasure, long before it ever occured to me that mine were inferior by comparison.
