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When it's raining cats and dogs
Sep. 4th, 2002 12:52 amI want it to rain.
Sure, a thunderstorm would be nice, with bonus points and all... but I'll settle for just plain ol' rain. Drat this state and its steady-state climate. I honestly miss some of the Michigan summer weather.
The house on Glenwood Drive was yet another where I was the Monster in the Basement, having gladly taken residence in the cool tile floor of 'down below'. For a teenage nerd there's nothing more enjoyable than an unusual living arrangement. I may have acted to my parents like I hated it, but I secretly loved my odd collection of living spaces. In the many houses I've grown in up, I was the monster under the stairs... the dragon in the basement... or the adventurer being the first to sleep in an in-progress new attic. In each case, the part I remember most would be the first time I'd hear rain, from each new location. The Glenwood basement was one of the favorites. When I grow old and my mind starts to fade, I already know one of the memories that I'll be taking refuge in. I had built an entire model airport in that basement, out of cut up manila folders and cheap plastic plane-models suspended from the ceiling by fishing line. I could hear and smell the rain just outside the casement windows, hitting the grass high up above my head. The lightning's flash would make the room flicker, even during the day -- and I could lose myself in the imagined images of an airport tower, using the telegraph key my dad had bought me to radio the pilots, helping them find their way home to land through the damp skies.
The other favorite was when I made my own bedroom out of haybales in the barn in Missouri, and snuck out there to sleep for a whole month. The bales were stacked a story and a half high in an interlocking way, so a kid like me could pull out the right ones in sequence to make caves, hallways, and an eventual open-air room way up top where nobody could see. It was, now that I think back on it, like a human Habitrail of sorts. I could climb up in there and be in my own lands. When the rains hit, the sound of the tin roof was incredible. I don't think my parents ever knew of my secret life there. My sisters knew of the places, playing there in the daytimes now and then, but I doubt they ever knew the significance it had for me.
Even living in a boring-weather, dry-summer area as I have for 8 years now, I can close my eyes and smell the rain. In my mind I'm sitting on the back corner porch of the Plainwell house, the midday storm-clouds filtering light to a gentle but UV-rich cast that turn the wet tree leaves a vivid green. The distant rumbles of a thunderstorm's near miss make the world feel more alive. The wandering thermal anvil-heads were living things to me; I could feel them as they arbitrarily growled at fields only a few county roads away. The hope, and at the same time... dread... that they would feel me in return and wander my way, was overwhelming at times. My family will remember this, how I was at once the most afraid and the most fascinated by the storms of anybody in our line. My whole life is punctuated between memories of storms; segways between chapters in life. It makes me smile to remember the playful laughter with friends as we darted through bathwater-warm rainshowers to the car; the weather a perfect ending-credit on the lazy summer day matinee we'd just watched. I could go on for hours like this, but the memories feel trivial to see written.
The news man today said there's a tiny, remote, slight chance of rain. Maybe. If we're lucky, and that butterfly in Brazil flapped its wings last Tuesday. The amount of hopefulness this jolted through me left me quite surprised.
They shouldn't tease me like that.
I wish it would rain.
--- o O o ---
Reading the words.
That describe my frame of mind.
Pull me through the fears of nowhere.
Leave me waiting for the rhymes...
Sure, a thunderstorm would be nice, with bonus points and all... but I'll settle for just plain ol' rain. Drat this state and its steady-state climate. I honestly miss some of the Michigan summer weather.
The house on Glenwood Drive was yet another where I was the Monster in the Basement, having gladly taken residence in the cool tile floor of 'down below'. For a teenage nerd there's nothing more enjoyable than an unusual living arrangement. I may have acted to my parents like I hated it, but I secretly loved my odd collection of living spaces. In the many houses I've grown in up, I was the monster under the stairs... the dragon in the basement... or the adventurer being the first to sleep in an in-progress new attic. In each case, the part I remember most would be the first time I'd hear rain, from each new location. The Glenwood basement was one of the favorites. When I grow old and my mind starts to fade, I already know one of the memories that I'll be taking refuge in. I had built an entire model airport in that basement, out of cut up manila folders and cheap plastic plane-models suspended from the ceiling by fishing line. I could hear and smell the rain just outside the casement windows, hitting the grass high up above my head. The lightning's flash would make the room flicker, even during the day -- and I could lose myself in the imagined images of an airport tower, using the telegraph key my dad had bought me to radio the pilots, helping them find their way home to land through the damp skies.
The other favorite was when I made my own bedroom out of haybales in the barn in Missouri, and snuck out there to sleep for a whole month. The bales were stacked a story and a half high in an interlocking way, so a kid like me could pull out the right ones in sequence to make caves, hallways, and an eventual open-air room way up top where nobody could see. It was, now that I think back on it, like a human Habitrail of sorts. I could climb up in there and be in my own lands. When the rains hit, the sound of the tin roof was incredible. I don't think my parents ever knew of my secret life there. My sisters knew of the places, playing there in the daytimes now and then, but I doubt they ever knew the significance it had for me.
Even living in a boring-weather, dry-summer area as I have for 8 years now, I can close my eyes and smell the rain. In my mind I'm sitting on the back corner porch of the Plainwell house, the midday storm-clouds filtering light to a gentle but UV-rich cast that turn the wet tree leaves a vivid green. The distant rumbles of a thunderstorm's near miss make the world feel more alive. The wandering thermal anvil-heads were living things to me; I could feel them as they arbitrarily growled at fields only a few county roads away. The hope, and at the same time... dread... that they would feel me in return and wander my way, was overwhelming at times. My family will remember this, how I was at once the most afraid and the most fascinated by the storms of anybody in our line. My whole life is punctuated between memories of storms; segways between chapters in life. It makes me smile to remember the playful laughter with friends as we darted through bathwater-warm rainshowers to the car; the weather a perfect ending-credit on the lazy summer day matinee we'd just watched. I could go on for hours like this, but the memories feel trivial to see written.
The news man today said there's a tiny, remote, slight chance of rain. Maybe. If we're lucky, and that butterfly in Brazil flapped its wings last Tuesday. The amount of hopefulness this jolted through me left me quite surprised.
They shouldn't tease me like that.
I wish it would rain.
Reading the words.
That describe my frame of mind.
Pull me through the fears of nowhere.
Leave me waiting for the rhymes...
-- P.M. Dawn, Raining Cats and Dogs
