Monday, June 7, 2021

And I love the rain


 







                         

 June 7 • 2021

It's raining today and I can't stop smiling.

I took Chewy for a walk this morning in the spritzing rain. He pinned his ears back to keep the rain out but it wasn't raining hard so I don't know what he was playing at. It wasn't raining that hard, but I used an umbrella anyway - funny since I have a thing for getting soaked in the rain.

It's not quite the kind of rain that I remember when Claire was five. We lived in Pennsylvania. The sky had been dark and threatening, then it burst open, yes like a bucket had been tilted, and we tore outside in our bare feet and ran screaming around the big green grassy yard. Puddles forming in the dips in the grass, we jumped and crashed in the water, big trees all around, so much green.

It's not quite the kind of rain storm that hit in an earlier house in Pennsylvania, on another June day. Michael and I had our friend, Penny over to the house. Her beloved husband, David, had died the week before and there were no words to hold the grief we all felt. Especially for Penny. That summer evening the rain clouds moved in quickly. Thunder claps rattled the house. There was lightning. And then, the rain came down, yes, in sheets. And the three of us ran out the back door, yelling and screaming down the sloping back yard, tall pine trees swaying in the wind, rain soaking us through our clothes. 




















Oh, so many rain stories:

• Out on the Sunfish with Dad in a scary rain storm in Little Neck Bay, me thinking we were going to die. Yes, a tad dramatic, but it was a helluva storm to be in a tiny sailboat. 

• Camping with Claire and my brother, Rob, in a torrential rain storm out in Montauk, tent walls crashing on us in the middle of the night. 

• With our friend, Bill Paden, at the Jazz Festival in Delaware Water Gap, the rain hit so fast and hard, our jeans were soaked as if we'd stepped out of a shower.

• Jesse with her red wagon and a big umbrella out on the sidewalk - a kind of rain fort

... + so many more





When it rains, I hurry to bring my inside plants, outside.







May it rain all week, easy and gently, so the parched earth out here in California can lap it up.

It's June, and not April, but I love this poem and today made me think of it.

🐟

April Rain

Let the rain kiss you

Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid

drops

Let the rain sing you a lullaby

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk

The rain makes running pools in the gutter

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night

And I love the rain.

- Langston Hughes


XO B 


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