And a Little More Rain

And a little more rain, in the afternoon. I was sitting alone at the dining table, eating some soup, when the sky darkened several shades, and the temperature dropped. A breeze stirred up the trees so that a delicate shower of yellow eucalyptus leaves fell against the general green. The gardener was squatting on the lawn, one knee down, one up under his chin, trimming the grass with secaturs. He looked at the sky when the breeze gusted, but did not stop work when the little drizzle began. Five minutes later the sky began to lighten again. These are the showers of summer – few and far between, and leaving the air more humid than they found it, but still very welcome.

And then I had to go out, and it began to drizzle again, very lightly, and I had some slow-motion cello music on the CD player – Bruch’s Kol Nidrei – and it felt as if I were driving underwater or in a dream, and then a crow glided with wings fully extended right across my windshield, and it was kinda sublime. Then back to normal: weaving through traffic; visiting the DVD library, where the girls behind the counter were so raptly involved with a Tamil movie playing on the TV mounted high on the wall in the corner that they could hardly remember to collect my money. Drove past the old Hotel Oceanic, which has finally been reduced pretty much to rubble (soon to become an IT park, I’m told). Home again.