Rain

I truly love watching rain.

Now, in order for you to understand what I mean by that, I suppose I should provide the setting in which I currently find myself. After all, as I’ve said in earlier posts on a variety of topics, for me it’s all about context.

I am sitting at my desk downstairs with a window out onto our back yard. My view is framed by the tie-back curtains Mary sewed many years ago, forming a proscenium that suggests intentional staging of an event.

Looking through the window, I see the water dripping steadily off the wind chimes whose stationary stance shows the lack of breeze. Across the yard between the fire pit and the dog run, Odin’s basketball has a wet sheen to it. The big boulder that provided a focal point for untold hours of our daughters’ make believe adventures is a darker shade than would be the case after a few dry days. Near the office window  a silk tree is growing its seasonal branches and on the branch that extends toward me and closest to my window, I can watch drops form on the down-facing bud heads, can watch them grow until gravity overcomes surface tension and they fall, only to start forming again.

The ivy over the old pond reminds me of the first few moments of the “Little April Showers” sequence in the old Disney Bambi movie, with random leaves recoiling individually as the rain hits them one by one and in no particular pattern. I can almost hear the music – well, okay, so I can actually hear the music because as soon as I wrote that last sentence, I Googled the song and watched the sequence – you should, too.

Moss on rocks and trees and the old concrete walk has taken on the impossibly vibrant green that only comes from a rain shower on an otherwise bright day. And everywhere I look, if I just rest my eyes instead of trying to focus, I can actually see the rain coming down. It’s not the gully-washer I saw north of Atlanta that time or the monsoons I’ve seen in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, nor is it the dull, dreary mist that I imagine one might encounter on Scottish moors or the streets of London. It’s just your standard, honest rainy day.

And I’m sitting here in my office, dry and warm with a Great Dane curled on the carpet behind me.

For this moment, while I gather my thoughts and prepare to do battle with The Book, I am as at peace as a man could ever be.