“To stay in places and to leave, to trust, to distrust, to no longer believe and believe again, . . . to watch the snow come, to watch it go, to hear rain on a tent, to know where I can find what I want.”

– Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer, journalist, adventurer, expatriate

Rain, to me, is much more than water falling from the sky. It is a double entendre at its best. It is double-sided. It is hated and revered, cursed and blessed.

This year, a year of severe drought, we’ve cried out for rain. We’ve wanted the skies to open up in their typical monsoon fashion and to drench us with that cooling, softening rain. We wanted to smell the earth after those torrential downpours and to feel the water dripping off of blades of grass.

“Be careful what you wish for” is a common saying. We desire rain. We call out for it. We get it and then I hear people around me saying they wish the sun would come out, wish it would quit raining. At this, at this particular remark, I shake my head. I want more rain. It’s still too dry. We haven’t had enough precipitation yet. I want more. I wouldn’t be disappointed with an entire day of rain, non-stop, sweet, sweet rain.

I remember the year of our floods here. Of course, it wasn’t many years ago…what, 6 or 7 years? We had so much snow and so much rain that the local lake was flowing over onto the roads. Nothing would grow because it was over-saturated.

It was water, glorious, life-giving water that was changing the earth around it, much to the dismay of so many people.

Monsoon season is my favorite time of year. Oh, yes, I love the beautiful Indian summers that we get here. The flowers once again open up their petals and show us their glory. I love the winters where the snow covers the Peaks and everything seems right with the world and we are surrounded by incredible natural sights. I enjoy the spring mornings that bring the daffodils with their golden heads bowed to the light. I ache for the warmth of June and the coolness of sitting on green grasses under large trees with giant leaves.

It’s monsoon season, though, that I crave. I look forward to the crashing thunder and lightening that cracks so close you would swear it’s in your backyard. The lightening shows that allow me to turn off all of my lights and enjoy a purple spectacle. The giant drops of rain that fall from the sky in a plop, plop, plop and bring a smile to my face. The rains bring more life. The rains allow us to live life more.

“Look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still — that up above beyond the cloud is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky.”

– Charles Kingsley (1819-75), British cleric, writer, “Alton Locke,” “The Water Babies”