Rain

It’s raining outside. I can hear it pattering as it hits the roof outside the window and drips down the gutter outside the corner of my room. When I was younger I would lie in bed listening to the rain falling outside until I fell asleep. I remember that I used to consider it musical and to think that there were patterns in the sound of the rainfall. When I hear it now, it feels geometric and the dark blue-grey of storm clouds.

There is a gutter that runs in front of our property. When it rains hard, the water rushes through. My brother and I would be outside on the banks, making leaf and stick boats to race from one end of the property to the other. Sometimes they would get stuck in the tunnel that runs under the driveway and in my mind some boat-eater lurked within.

I remember that hopping from one bank to the other was the largest leap a ten year old could dare when falling into the water was a danger. Of course, we waded through that gutter with impunity, so getting wet wasn’t the problem; falling into the water was like getting lost.

I remember that it became a river within my imagination somewhere beyond my home and boundaries.

Hearing the rain outside is one of the things that I missed this year in college. My room was to high to hear it hitting the ground and I couldn’t hear it hit the roof. I didn’t realize I missed it until I came home.