I write the rain

When the rain winds come

It’s a stuffy day and I decide to write outdoors. Rain has hovered in the sky all afternoon, but not yet let go of the clouds. My shoulders sink as I start walking, looking for today’s writing space. I pass the mossy rock beneath a maple where I wrote last week. I see a fallen oak trunk on the edge of a meadow that I’ll save for next time. And then I see it, a small pier with the lake spread like a blanket in front of it. I have known about it for years, but I’ve never seen it as a space for writing before. A young alder tree at the edge of the pier welcomes me to sit on the bench underneath its branches. This is where I’ll spill my words for the next couple of hours.

The rain still clings to the clouds when I feel a sudden shift vibrating across the lake – a wind with a force that can’t be mistaken for anything but an approaching downpour. Toppling waves roll in over the surface that was calm a minute ago. I wait and watch the edge of the rain linger, sizzle right before me. I can almost touch it. I expect the drops any second, but they hold back. When I think the front has brushed by, they come – rain drops the size of marbles, determined to splash to the ground as fast and dramatically as they can, turning the surge into a boiling pot, raging unapologetically before me. Sea gulls flying just above the waves, smooth bellies brushing their sharp edges.

The second the first liberating raindrops land on me, the clammy afternoon vanishes from my skin. My headache lifts as I take in the new air, leaving me with a lightness and ease to fill my lungs. I lift my gaze and see the greys of water, clouds and raindrops merge as if they were one being – clouds sewn into the waves by rain strings. The most subtle shift in shape, speed or movement of the clouds makes the puppet lake mimic the pattern. I wonder when the clouds become rain, when the raindrops become the lake.

How does the water know
how to be cloud, drop or wave?
Does it know
when to hover, gush, and surge?
Oh, to be a raindrop,
plump with life and buzz!
I would land on giggling children on see-saws,
bounce off noses
and plummet on ponds in the park.
I would dive into the lake
and lift to the clouds,
fall gently,
trickle on leaves
and whisper the sprouts through the soil.

The ink blurs where a drop from the alder lands on my notebook, steering my pen in a new direction. Billowing ridges spread across the sheets, floating my words, bloating them into new shapes, taking up space, with no consideration of my plans for them. Pages before and after join the paper waves, connecting what I write today to what I wrote yesterday, rippling through to what I will write tomorrow. I write the rain. Through the expanding blotches new dimensions reveal themselves and open my eyes to writing I didn’t know existed.

The rain quietens and I watch a spider walking across my page, weaving the words into new paragraphs on its way to the top right corner. When it has spun itself to the ground I close my notebook, grateful for what the rain has taught me. As I watch the lake a new front changes it again, this time dancing concentric rings on the surface. The foliage is saturated and leaks its promise of shelter onto my shoulders. I pack my notebook and head home, glasses still blurred by raindrops. Behind them I pretend it’s still raining.