Rain

<p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/118949472″>Rain Circles</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user37157998″>Elaine Cramer</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

When we built our first deck on our house, we didn’t know to space the slats a little apart so rain could get through. It’s the sort of thing that seems obvious in hindsight… But the material is a composite, so it doesn’t hurt too much, and I quite like the effect when we get serious rain here. It can be mesmerizing, watching the circles the rain makes in the standing water.

I think Oregonians should develop, or maybe we already have developed, a vocabulary for all the different sorts of rain we get. After all, the Eskimos are supposed to have a vast capacity for naming snow.  Until recently though, I wasn’t all that concerned. I found it interesting that some days there could be a light rain that could soak you faster and more thoroughly than gigantic plopping rain drops. When I was a teenager, I hated the rain that was barely more than a heavy fog which would float up underneath my umbrella to destroy my carefully crafted hairstyle.

And then I created an audio studio in my home. My home of the vaulted ceilings. I soon found out that I had issues during a storm. And there was a big storm today, making me worry that I wouldn’t be able to record today. I was going to look at it as a sign from the universe to give my voice a break and just do a lot of editing, but I caught a break. Now, a caller just now thought he had a bad connection because he could barely hear me.

Maybe I should have just edited today…

Secret

When I drive over the Catching Slough on my way home every night, I almost always catch my breath. Tonight was a golden monochrome of silver.

Pale green/gold light filtered through lavender clouds and caressed the green, velvety rolling hills, revealing depths in the contrasting textures of leaf and needle and blade. Mysteries lay up every draw. The tide waters filled the Coos river to its banks, its steel gray waters the perfect anchor to the scale of hues in this picture.

Shhh, I thought. Too many people knowing about this would ruin the serenity of this scene. I think this as I hit the wipers once. As I drive on, I turn the delay on low. Before I reach home, I have gone through every setting on the delay and back to off.

Maybe I don’t need to worry so much about keeping this secret. Many people are so sweet, they would just dissolve in all this rain. 🙂

Nostalgia

Yeah, it’s been a dry winter and I’ve been worried about forest fires, beings as how I live in the forest!! But a few days ago the rain started. I think it’s been wetter the last few days than all of winter. And our freshly chip sealed driveway is taking a beating by the constant downpour.

And yet….

I was coming up Beaver Hill around 5:30 AM and there was the clouds kissing the tree tops, and getting mighty slobbery at it too. A feeling comes over me. Sometimes I feel it in the heat of summer.

I am taken back I don’t know how many years, probably not too long after we moved to Oregon from Missouri. These states are so different from each other. I’m sure it rained in Missouri, but in the summer fields turn into dirt. Here in Oregon, it usually rains well into June, and though we might have a warm summer, rarely does it top 90, let alone 100. Our fields turn into, well. less green. The grass will turn a lovely golden color if left to grow long. The best descriptor of Oregon summers is pleasant.

Oops. I think that’s supposed to be a secret….

Many people don’t care how lovely it is here in the summer, because they know most of the year it is, ahem, damp. Except this year. I was off work for 3 weeks the beginning of April and it was acting like August. We made the appointment to get our driveway chip sealed. Well, that’s another blog, I think.

I have this memory, so clear. Being in some sort of truck, wet to the skin, feeling the heat coming up from the floor boards. It felt so heavenly. Chime in sisters, if you remember similar. Seems like it could have been a return from skiing, but I believe it had more to do with target shooting on Mt. Hood in a clear cut. Maybe it’s the culmination of hundreds of rainy day hikes.

And when I see those clouds come down to touch the earth the nostalgia is so visceral.  It’s like a peek into another world. It’s the past thrust into my lap. I am overtaken. In the best way.

So, rain on!