It’s raining heavily outside, a welcome downpour our drought-ridden state desperately requires, and I sit here looking out the window as nature drinks hungrily from its own fountain.  Water droplets are a veil over the world that blends colors into a smooth existence, distant trees becoming grey like the sky around them and all of existence awash in bounty from the heavens.

I sit here like a gloomy little boy.  Caring not one bit to do anything other than enjoy this welcome yet simple gift of rain, I try to bathe in it sitting at my desk.  I find it an impossible challenge to meet.  Grumpily, as a spoiled child might finally storm off to clean his or her room, I stand and walk to the patio doors in the bedroom, peering through the blinds hoping this would satisfy my desperate need for this solemnity.  I feel as though my gaze falls upon all my broken toys as I sit and look at the computer screens or let my sight fall upon any other distraction available to me here at home.

Thrumming and drumming from the rain call out to me in ways I can not understand.  I reach out and grasp the doorknob.  My eyes remain focused through the blinds while my hand strengthens its grip on the only means of escape.

I simultaneously pulled away from the blinds and opened the door in one sweeping motion that seems both graceful and desperate in hindsight.  The coolness of the rain hit me suddenly, breathlessly, and I welcomed the humidity as I might a brother.  Oh, how we need this… I thought.

I stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind me.  Here, where the rain could already reach me as it splashed from the roof above and the fence below, I stood motionless as though my body were frozen in time and space.  I close my eyes…

Verses call to me from the rain.  I hear them clearly.  Melodic strings tug at me in places I can not physically reach.  Although I find peace in the lyrical call bestowed upon me, I don’t know how to sing the song.

I hear the voices.  They’re quite clear to me as I finally release the doorknob behind me and step further onto the patio, the splash of rain against my face and body a welcome respite from the parched existence we’ve endured here for some time.  This could be the most significant rain in six months or more.  Sad is it that we now measure our rainfall in comparison to what has come before, most readily measurable in the desperation to avoid the flames of wildfires which have burned a significant part of the state in recent months.  Even grass not meticulously cared for via disgusting displays of financial well-being (e.g., lots of water and professional care) has become tinder for the most minor of sparks, literally turning to dust in your bare hands should you care to reach down and touch it.  It’s frightening.

I now stand mere inches from my patio fence.  Rain splashing from the railing and the roof above me provide life-giving caresses of what is most cherished here: water from rainfall.  Its choral lamentations sound of living’s sirens.  One might almost hear the sudden and abrupt growth of life, somehow made capable of hearing the tree bud, the grass grow, and every piece of life around me lap at the fountain of youth gifted upon them.

I hear the voices of this shadow cast, and if I look closely enough I can see their smiles.  Somehow…  Is it by the wisdom of the wise man?  Or the folly of the fool?  I suspect it’s both.

All my life has come to this one time.  Amazingly, that’s terribly common.  We may all say the same thing at any one point in our lives, pausing for a moment to consider that all the before brings us to this place, that memories of the past define what is present.  This before and that behind…  It’s all the same for each of us, and it defines what we have to give and what we might receive from others.

How the call of life cries out to me.  I hear it in every drop of rain touching every exposed surface.  I hear it in the birds flying overhead, their voices mingling with the rain to define a life-giving dance by nature.  This sound woke me before the sun rose.  I even hear it when I sleep: how many like me rest more comfortably with the sound of rain in the background?

What I need is to be still at this very moment.  Quiet…  Contemplative…  I look up and see the dark silhouettes circling against the endless grey sky.  They swoop and they turn and they scurry about in the aloft.  How I dream of being like them, free of the world’s confines in a way few creatures may know.

Does the bear dream of flying?  Does a rodent in the raptor’s grasp wonder if flight would help his people survive?  Does the opossum roaming at night wish to fly higher into the tree on wings it does not possess?  I wonder…

My eyes closed and head tilted back, I let the rain splash upon my face, relaxed utterly and completely through absorption in this fantastic display of renewal.  Things may not always be what they seem, but here and now, the rain touching me with skillful and expert hands, I bath in the calming reality of it all.  Over this we have no power, this rain thing, and we could not stop it if we wished.

I stand trembling.  Am I unworthy of this gift?  Or, and I hope it’s this, am I simply overwhelmed with the beauty and purity of this thing called rain?  It’s a demonstration of power we as yet do not understand.  I am in awe.

It takes me away from myself, renews me just as it renews the world.  Thirsty life surrounds me.  No different than it must feel at this moment, I’m refreshed and made new.

[this has been developing in my mind since it rained two days ago]