Here Comes the Rain Again

Some time around 5:30 this evening, I started feeling uncomfortable (which isn't quite the right word, but neither is melancholy, depressed, blue, ennui-full, yes I made up that word). No idea why (hello 2020), but when the lighting outside started changing, my mood lifted. I went outside to feel the gusts of wind. I shortly went back inside for my wrap-around sunglasses, as the dust going into my eyes, even when I merely cracked them open the smallest bit, was fast becoming problematic.

To my surprise and delight, rain started falling: big, fat blobs of water, smacking hard against the sidewalk, the roof, the porch. I have such wonderful memories of running in Arizona monsoons as a teenager, that I immediately smiled when the first rain hit my face. I soon realized that this rain, however, wasn't the hot monsoon rain of my childhood: it was cold snaps everywhere a drop struck. My first inclination was to retreat onto the porch, maybe into the house, but the lightning dancing across the sky stopped me. I swear, those dances were designed to torment me: every time I pointed the camera at one part of the sky, the lightning zipped across another part of the sky. When I moved my camera to that part of the sky, the lightning returned to the sky I had just stopped viewing. I managed only one decent picture in an hour, and across a good half thousand shots.

Eventually, the rain started dumping hard. The harder it came down, the more I laughed with joy. The last time I had been in rain this hard was in Ottawa, when I ran to retrieve the car in a downpour so heavy I was soaked in the first twenty meters and was accompanied by the thoughts, "I'm the only person out here in this rain," and "People die doing shit like this." Not being able to see down a block because the rain was so heavy is an interesting experience, one that, well, let's be honest, I do recommend to most people.

After the memories of childhood and the memory of the Ottawa Pour, I was quickly reminded how much this house REALLY needs gutters. I don't know how anyone thinks houses in Phoenix don't need gutters. Adding that to my house list.