Monday, April 27, 2009

Have You Ever Seen The Rain?

I was driving me and my girl home from somewhere and it was really late (or really early) and she was asleep beside me and it was pouring rain. The weatherman would have described the rain as “torrential” which I always thought was a lame word choice, but then there I was driving in it and it was torrential. As I passed beneath a bridge, the most amazing thing presented itself to me. The rain was coming down so vertically that beneath the bridge was pure calm. The difference was so extreme that it demanded all of my senses. If I had been in a sedentary driving trance before that, I was suddenly very alert and aware. I pulled a U-turn just to experience it again. Pure downpour, then pure calm, and then pure downpour again. After I confirmed my senses, I pulled another U-turn and headed back again. This time though, while under the bridge, I stopped just short of the wall of rain, parked, and stepped out of my car. I walked up to it. It was the kind of straight down rain that you could stand right up against and not get wet. You could run your hand across the face of it. It occurred to me that she had to experience this too. I went back to the car and woke her up. She protested, but then she saw. There we were, standing there alone, side by side, facing this tremendous wall of rain, experiencing it, and filling our every sense with it. There was no noise except the furious rain smacking the street. No cars went by while we waited for something greater to come swooping down to claim us. It was like we were obeying something larger than ourselves. Like we were one with it. I closed my eyes, reached over for her hand, and she took it.

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