The Falling Rain

It rained all day Sunday and I went for a walk with Sam. It wasn’t a driving rain but rather a slow, steady rain - perfect for the flowers that had just been planted. Perfect for a quiet day off.

When I was a kid, sometimes, on a rainy day, I would walk to the far end of the middle school fields, down to the far corner where there was a small, hidden refuge.

This patch of solitude sat below eye level, down about four or five feet - which was not a lot, but it was enough to make it nearly invisible from a distance.

On one side, it was protected by a thin line of trees and brush, separating it from the streets and sidewalks beyond. On the other side were the approaching fields. But in between the fields and the shallow banks, there was a surrounding ring of overgrown grass and wildflowers, which made it nearly indistinguishable from the greenery beyond.

Aside from the ring of wildflowers and aside from the five foot banks, this refuge consisted of two main features. The first was a very small pond - a glorified puddle, really. The second was a large cement culvert which sat at one end of this small pond. Rainwater, collected by the various storm drains scattered around the distant school, traveled through the culvert, under the fields, before emptying into the pond.

The culvert was fairly large, certainly large enough to sit in. On those rainy days, I would climb down the banks of the pond and perch myself about a foot or so inside the culvert. With my feet pressed against one side and my back against the other, the small stream of water would pass under my legs, feeding into the pond just outside.

As I sat, I would listen to the stillness. There was nothing but the sound of the flowing water and of the rain as it fell on the fields and trees around me. From the shelter of this cave, I would watch as the raindrops fell on the surface of the pond, their ringlets growing and fading, over and over and over again.

It rained all day Sunday and I went for a walk with Sam. We took our umbrellas and drove to the train yard, where we parked and walked along the adjoining bike path. We walked down through the woods, past the newly planted fields, down to the iron bridge, where we stood in our rainy day silence and watched and listened as the river flowed beneath us.

After a while, Sam and I walked back through woods, back through the stillness. As we walked, I listened to the sound of our footsteps. I listened as the rain fell through the trees and tapped on our umbrellas. And I listened as the distant sound of river gradually faded away behind us.