Il pleut.

It’s raining again and I don’t mind.
I’d rather the precipitation drift down in solid state but winter can’t last forever
and the tiny, pale magenta buds covering everything quick and vertical in the gardens have been
harbingers of the slow, green pulse of springtime and all the promises that transitional season will hold for me.  Living in a climate that boasts four full seasons is good for the eternal optimist in me.
I always find something to love no matter where I am.
No matter the grip of the season I’m swirling in.
No matter.
No matter.
I’m looking out the window as I type this and the daylight is so very hushed by the low grey of the clouds.  It’s dim enough to be dawn but the clock already reads past noon.
I think some big hand reached down from the heavens and pressed a mute into the trumpet bell of daytime.  We’re all slowly nodding our heads and drumming our fingers to the easy, mopey jazz grey of today.  At least I am.  I don’t know about you.
Then there’s the quiet chatter of the raindrops against windowpanes.  The considerate and tidy wrapping of the world in crystal sphere — clean wet grace.  I’m drowning in music over here.  Everything keeps even time together — the squish of my galoshes in spongy ground, the gurgle of the gutters as they spit and drip their tithes and offerings all over the slate path that leads around the side of the house and down past the rose garden.


Inside, the dogs lay in their beds, pressed up against the heat registers, snoring softly.
Mister Pinkerton is without his sun pools and light spools. Instead, he curls up in the down comforter on the bed.
My hands are cold.

The rain causes delays.
There’s some primal urge in me to brew tea and coffee, to bake bread, to warm the house further for practical reasons, life sustaining reasons.  But then I hear the furnace kick in once more and I settle into my formidable laze again.  My soul is draped over a chaise lounge.  Someone lovely has tucked me in beneath a warm quilt (beneath this dowdy sky).  He or she is feeding me dark chocolate and reading some glorious tale about pioneers aloud while the kettle whistles at full heat over in the kitchen.
The rain makes me daydream.

The best thing about this weather is viewing the world in high-gloss.  I’ll have no more of that eggshell, semi-matte business!  Everything outside has a glorious sheen to it.  Even that old cow skull in the pansy planter looks less chewed on and more beautiful than it did during the dry doldrums of yesterday.


I want to widen my mouth at the blunt ends of the twig tips and pour those smooth, gravity heavy beads into my soul.  One by one.  Sipping small universes.  I want to drink deep.  Find some inspiration.  Glean a tiny fire for my mind.  Quench a little thirst for my heart.  I want to plant my toes in soft earth, dream of the barefoot days of summer, believe in the capable spin and tilt of this planet — the ability of the world to right itself — the need for Big Hands to steady us all and set us on our feet once more.
I do believe.  
I do.
Rain is so clever.
Just Who dreamed it up, anyway?
Drink up drink up.  
It doesn’t fall just for the trees and flowers, you know?

Avec parapluie,
Jillian

Comments

  1. studio.delucca says

    just don't drink the rainwater that has drizzled down from the roof, ok……??

    enjoy this day of soul-rest
    xo

  2. "My soul is draped over a chaise lounge", I'll think that to myself later and smile.

    It snowed here all day Monday (such an uncommon occurrence here the pure novelty of it made us all giddy). Today it will be 70 degrees outside, and all of the white has melted away leaving behind a sea of green. In a few weeks the fields will be purple with wild violets and my irises will be reaching towards the sky. I do love the slow melding of each season one into the other. Enjoy your rainy day.

  3. calamityjane(t) says

    oh, oh, oh i love this post! it complements my mood exactly, allowing me the freedom to stop fighting it and live fully this moment. thank you, as always, for generously casting your words like blossoms into our day!

  4. mme. bookling says

    I read a poem recently that called rain the earth's poetry. off to find it now…i think it was neruda, but it seems apt here.

    even in subdued grays, you are spectacularly vibrant, my peacock.

  5. Ah, I keep sending you songs. I hope that's ok with you. :O)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DzQkl1GNpJQ

    Tombe tombe tombe la pluie
    en ce jour de dimanche de décembre,
    à l'ombre des parapluies
    les passants se pressent, pressent, pressent sans attendre

  6. Nancy*McKay says

    and if I were a piece of furniture i'd be a…chaise.

    in
    high gloss
    chartreuse.

    xo

  7. marie bell says

    avec parapluie: mais oui.
    xx

  8. DalaHorse says

    Plume…i hope your feathers have dried sufficiently….Joyful tears from the heavens~~~Earth merging with wet sky…nature brings the best gifts and paints our moods like no other. ☂

  9. You can really see which way the wind was blowing in that last picture. The tree is "1/2 wet". That's cool

  10. deanna may says

    Perhaps you should move to Alberta. We had such a rainy summer, laced through with hothothot days, and such a long, drawn-out winter. Just this evening I walked to the store in one of those snowfalls that seems fake: like big soap-flake movie-set snowflakes. It was beautiful, but just another sign that winter is not coming to a close, or even planning to.