On Drowning
I think maybe I've always hated the rain. When I was young I wanted to like it. All my friends liked it. Angsty music liked it. Why couldn't I?
Living in the Northwest solidified it. Sweet Olympia, WA. The rain made me crazy. I'll never go back.
And I remember bostoncold standing still in snowpants (maybe it won't notice me?) knowing getting wet meant being cold for a long time.
But I've always loved the suspense.
Right Before it rains when the clouds take over the sky like some great ceiling & everything sounds louder moves faster everything seems more important, dare I say cinematic?
Someone told me once there was a scientific reason, something about the charge in the air before lightning.
I don't know about that. I'm not a scientist. But I do know people seem to realize something about inertia in those white times.
And people seemed to know, earlier this week, when the sun was bright not a cloud in the sky, that things fall apart.
Everyone was preparing, soaking up every ray they could. And predictions bore fruit 3 days ago when the clouds strolled in under night.
Blood seemed to pump faster a precursor to the future & everyone began the beautiful shout.
I could hear the blood in my ears last night when the fog commenced. Fog so thick I thought of making allusions to London, to soup. I didn't.
Instead I wandered my broken streets, creaking under the pressure of the inevitable. I thought about beauty. I thought about Carl Sandburg; I saw the fog a cat with prowl&alleys. I thought about that moment before the sunset when the light shines through the clouds & you can see it strike the ground like the finger of god. And I saw the fog make streetlamp into tangible string, make a cobweb of the night for a dark, wet spider.
At this point in my life it has become clear to me I may not actually be able to change the weather. Or maybe only a little. And certainly not now, when things are so far gone I wonder if it is in fact raining when I look away.
And at this point in my life I think hatred's tiring. Maybe I find being cold & wet uncomfortable, but I have learned to appreciate the rain. The fluorescent forest beauty of the northwest. The symphony sound of rain against a hard tin roof in dark guatemala, a thing I thought must be caused by a god. My friend, the fog, meowing out of the window of a chinese ghetto. All these would be gone without rain. And without the murder you could not have the mystery. Truly, I appreciate the beauty of rain in the suspense.