Dreaming of Rain

Last night I dreamt of rain. It pounded down and I was walking around the house closing windows and checking doors. The wind blew hard but there was a sense of safety. The house would keep the elements out.

Along with the sense of safety came one of relief. We’re living with an ongoing drought here in Central Texas, and last night, before turning in, as the boys were taking a bath, I took the opportunity to sit in my wicker chaise in the back yard and drink a beer. It was still about ninety degrees and the only breeze came from my outdoor ceiling fans on the back patio. Reclining, I surveyed my tiny realm; the grass looked sad and brown, and the clouds welled up like a bad actor, trying to make himself cry.

When I was a child in elementary school in the northern suburbs of New York City, there were mornings when I woke to flashes of lightning and rolling thunder. On those mornings, my mother – a late sleeper, normally – would pry herself out of bed so that she could drive us to the bus stop on Knollwood Road at the end of our street. We would sit there in the back seat – no seat belts back then, let alone child seats – chattering about whatever the topic would have been back in those days (Bugs Bunny, Underdog, Jaws) and listening to the rain’s uneven percussion on the roof of our Gran Torino wagon. Sometimes my best friend Miki (my “Brother From Another Mother,” in today’s parlance) would join us, and we’d wait for that cheddar-yellow Bluebird bus (number 4, I think it was) to pull up before making the mad, soaking dash to its open door, a quick goodbye to Mom thrown over the shoulder as I started my sprint. Thinking back on it now, missing her as much as I do, I wish I’d lingered longer.

Here in the waking world of the present, there has been, predictably, no rain, despite the imminent arrival of Hurricane Don on the Texas Gulf Coast. Mark Murray, the local weather guy who contributes to KGSR said yesterday we were unlikely to feel Don’s effect here in our scorching, sun-drenched corner of the world.

Thus, my dreams of rain.