Rain

I'm watching the rain from my transplanted bedroom in Old Home.

When my parents relocated to The Ranch, they had a three bedroom house as they did where I grew up. Of the non-master bedroom, one became "mine" and one became "my sister's", mostly through a few random pictures and memorabilia scattered about. For the last 10+ years, this is the bedroom I mostly call home when I'm here. I've watched rain, snow, turkeys, horses, and the sun's movement across the field from this room.

I love rain. I have come to appreciate most all seasons of the year, but I believe that winter continues to be favorite. I love clouds, I love rain, I love fog, I love the hint of new life that exists within the seemingly barren months.

I love rain most of all. Rain is not all the same, you know: rain in Old Home comes in long periods, falling gently over time. Rain in New Home comes, more often than not, in high powered downloads of moisture that creates curtains of clear water off the roof and rivers of water that move down the driveway and into the storm sewers - and as often as not, leaves no evidence the next day.

I love to watch rain at Old Home; that gentle hint of flying water almost seen out of the corner of one's eye, waiting to be more fully examined as you focus. I love the sound it makes as it hits the roof and you can hear it. It's best at night: the patter of rain is a fine sound to meditate on, to listen to, to fall asleep to. The water it brings is living giving, running down the meadow across from my window to join the creek through the meadow, which runs to a larger creek, which eventually runs to the river. The spring drinks in this water through the ground and fills the pond in front of it, filling and running over the horse trough as the frogs swim and sing for mates and turtles remain burrowed in the mud, waiting for spring.

The gray of the clouds highlights the green of the pine trees, creating a skyline far more enticing to me than any that a civilized city could offer. Looking up, I see a large oak with moss covering its bark, rivulets of water running down through the moss and clumps of mistletoe. A lone dead leaf, one of a handful still hanging on, continues to twist in the wind as if seeking a reason to make the final long plunge to the ground.

The rains feed not only the land here: they feed my soul, so far away, giving the images and the strength to continue to live, to find my way back - back to this plot of earth, this geographical heart of mine.

Home.