Saturday Rain

"I never wanted anything so much

than to drown in your love

and not feel your rain."

- Sara Bareilles - Gravity.

Cleansing rain. They say that water washes away sin, but if sin is just words, then so is salvation.

I woke this morning to the sound of pouring rain. It had not been forecast, so the sound woke me up, as I seem to be tuned to wake to anything I do not expect or recognize. I didn't want to move, laying underneath a roof of rain, thinking of home, out West, of waking in my bed in my old room, of familiar sounds around me. The warmth there with me, like rain.

The rain washes clean, but it as well leaves its mark. Gouges from rivulets in the calloused summer soil, as if scraped by hard nails. Marks that will not fade until further rain falls.


There is something magical about water, I'd stand in it thigh deep, fishing, I'd wade in it, as a child at camp, the small laps of waves from passing canoes pressing up against my back, coming and going, but always present. As children , rain crashing down, we'd rush to go out in it, seeing not cold, not wet, but drops of wonder on everything around us. We'd look at our shadows on the ground as the sun came back, wondering why the shadow was shaped like us, but nothing else, a mirror that is not a mirror. Wondering why when I looked straight into the sun, I saw a perfect pure circle of light. Hope personified.

We spent so many days in the water, at hotels on trips to California to visit my Aunt and Uncle who raised almonds on a large spread of land. Afternoons sluicing down an irrigation ditch, evenings at a hotel pool on the drive home. My Mom could never get us to come in from the water, even if a thunderstorm threatened, cumulus clouds forming mighty towers in the hot sky overhead.


I'd hear her voice call out and pop up to the surface with a shout, surging forward to lay chase again to some silvery form rushing away. My parent's watchful eye, and admonishment to come in simply a mirage in the distance, dismissed by the shimmering water. Turn, splash, dive. Diving down deep into the waters of the womb, or perhaps swimming clear of it.

It was a summer of freedom and blue skies. I'd sleep to time's carousal and wake to the laughter of God, echoing in the splash of the perfect cannon ball into the deep end. The deep end, where I'd threw myself, my reason and restraint, into the blue and simply wait for it to embrace me even as I heard someone call out a warning.

For I was a stubborn child, not about the big things, the little things. Eating those beets, coming inside, riding my bike too fast. Even now, it's still there, of only a stubborn determination to believe.

But I didn't totally ignore the warning of the waters, growing up so near to it I was taught to be wary of it. "Never turn your back on the ocean" my Mom said so many times, Never go out into the river when the spring thaws run. But water was everywhere, blue streams tickled with trout, dying fall leaves flinging themselves into the water, flotillas of the lost, splattering the water with yellow light. There's still waters as green as the scent of rain, frogs moaning with boredom in hushed summer light. Soft pale air breathes on skin, a lover's moist breath. Pine needles snap under my feet as I'm drawn to the water like flame, a rush of steelhead scented water over stone, the communion of movement.


So many summer swimming holes, and soon, wheels to take us there. One summer, some parents out of town, I defied orders to stay home with my big brother and jumped into the back of a car to go to the river to swim, to erase the sticky hot chains of being a teen with a curfew. The warm air was like a balm, fireflies flirting with twilight, the wind rippling my hair along with the summer pines, the sound almost that of silence. I looked up, hoping to see a thunderstorm erupt, unknown power in the atmosphere that would only be washed away with the rain. Water cleansing the earth.

It was a small hatchback type car, with two doors and a small back seat. I'm alone in the back, trying to get out of my shorts and T- shirt as my swim suit is on underneath, ready to hit the water as soon as we stop. My head is down and I have no sensation of movement. All I remember is an abrupt "bump bump bump" pushing me forward into the seat. And the car is down a brief embankment into the water.

They say when you think you are going to die your life flashes before your eyes. Not true, all you see is water, and even before it touches your body your movement is slowed as if running a nightmare's marathon through it. My friends were out before the hood was completely underwater. The water hisses at the windshield like a really pissed off cat, and I pull away out of instinct, anxious to protect my limbs. I was in the back, trapped by the seat. I either get over and out, or I drown, it's as simple as that. The windows were down, an escape, even if it provides a way for the water to say hello sooner. I clamber over the seats, get into the front and move towards the window as the water pushes me away. One of my friends grabs my arm to help pull me up and out and then accidentally lets go of me, as I head, vulnerable as a leaf, downstream.


There is no real chance that I'd drown at this point. The water is not that cold or particularly deep, the current is manageable. I'm a strong swimmer. But trying telling that to the fear. Pull, I tell my arms. My arms obey, and I break through the current and head towards shore, the vain instants of solid ground underfoot, touching me and then receding again, leaving me to flounder. But the water is not all that deep, nor all that swift, and the shore is within reach. We gather there, staring, stunned, other motorists around, as water drips through my eyes like tears. The car is submerged. No one is hurt. It hit me then, not how close we came, not that the little Pinto at the bottom of the river probably won't buff out. What hit me was - "I'm going to be grounded for a YEAR".

It was only a month, and for that I am grateful, but a lesson was learned, even if I still wouldn't eat my beets. Take no chances with the cold, precious waters. The river is wider than you think.

It's still raining as I take Barkley out for his morning run. I see the photo of my Mom on the mantle and think back to all the things I was warned about. Don't swim for an hour after you eat. Don't stay in the water during a thunderstorm. We wary of the river that looks so cool and inviting for that is the one in which you will drown.

Thunder rumbles as I stay silent, stubbornly refusing to listen to her voice in my head. Drops fall from the sky, salty, dense, leaving wet trails down my cheeks. The water rushes down, affirmation, promise, even as it erodes the memories that remain.