... rain

it's late and it's raining. not very hard, at the moment, but the rhythm of the rain against the eaves, the windows, the path next door... it contrives to promise downpours and storms without any evidence to back the promise up.

i've been missing the rain. i like the rain. winter this year hasn't felt terribly wet, or at least it hasn't felt so to me. one of my favourite nights was about twelve and a half years ago. i was living in north wollongong, sharing a flat with a friend from school, and a quite heavy rainstorm hit about seven or eight o'clock one saturday night. tim was out somewhere and i had been at the computer trying hard to conquer dune in westwood's game "dune 2", a fantastic precursor to the revolutionary command & conquer. i smelled the rain coming before the storm broke, keeping one eye on the screen and one on the window in case i had to turn the computer off in anticipation of an electrical storm that might cause a blackout.

once it started raining there came no indication that it might ever stop. it felt primordial, ancient, as if every droplet of rain was a tyrannosaurus compared to a front-garden skink. i stood on the verandah for a few minutes, breatheing in the coppery air. it was invigorating.

i took off my watch and glasses, shoes and socks, put on beach sandals, put the house key in my pocket and wandered out the door. i went walking in the rain for an hour or two, i don't quite recall how long for. it felt very liberating to be ambling along in the rain, taking all the time in the world, while everyone else that i passed seemed to be very keen to get in out of the rain.

we seem so strange to everyone else, i think, wandering around in the rain when everyone else just wants to get out of it. while i'm wandering in rain, i'm rarely worrying that i'm in the rain. it can't rain all the time and a time is coming (and is not far off) when it won't rain - some of us will be enjoying a city without sun or stars and a river running through it.

thunder's coming.