Deluge

It rained yesterday.

And I don't mean your token April shower, as if God were saying, "I haven't forgotten you. I know it's been a very long dry season, but if you wait a few more months, I'll bring you some real rain."

It wasn't like that at all. No, this was a real rain. It poured on and off (mostly on) for four or five hours. And it had even rained the day before. (What?! In April?!?)

I was just resting in my parents' air-conditioned bedroom, reading (ironically) Love in the Driest Season when I heard the rain begin to patter on the roof. I switched off the AC and relocated to the living room. The sun was still streaming into the room, so I thought about looking for a rainbow, but instead I parked myself on a comfy chair and watched the rain. It was only drizzling at that point, and I loved to see it stream down from the roof. Should I put buckets out to catch the rain?

Then the thunder came rolling through, and flashes of lightning seared the sky. To the outlets! I was trained when I was just nine to unplug everything in a thunderstorm, and since I was the only one home yesterday, I scrambled around the house, unplugging computers, TV, VCR, microwave, the whole shebang. I want to blog about this, about how much I love the rain, but I couldn't because I didn't dare turn on a computer. Gusts of wind began to blow the rain through the louvered windows, so my next task was shutting them all. One window just refused to shut, so I took the cushions off the chair beneath it to keep them from getting drenched. I knew the drill.

I watched it rain for almost an hour before I fell asleep on the couch. It lightened at one point, and I thought, Well, that's it for today, but then it started up again. Ponds developed in the front yard, and when the rain dissipated briefly, they disappeared as quickly as they'd formed, soaked up by the parched soil.

I love the rain. I come from a part of the U.S. that's pretty dry - southern California - but I don't remember appreciating the rain until I came here. While my agemates in Los Angeles were spending hot sunny summer days making sand castles at the beach, I was reading Mandie, Bodie Thoene war stories, Nancy Drew mysteries, and eventually Steinbeck and Hemingway, while the rain pounded the red earth outside. Mm, what delicious memories, and what delights to anticipate now, with this summer's rains just around the corner. It's like a foretaste of heaven.

I hope it rains today, too.