The sky looks like I've never seen it before: deep gray descending through a scale to bright white on the horizon. Rain is pouring down in a density that is rare for this part of the country. We've been getting rain just about every day, toward evening. I didn't pay enough attention last year to know when it fell then, but it's normal for it to rain here every day for an hour or two during the summer, mostly July and August. There's some nice thunder every so often. I feel a little nostalgic for Maryland when it's raining. I would often sit in the screened-in porch during a rainstorm on a hot and humid night, the wood of the porch chair swollen and damp on my hands, taking in the smell of the wet world, the sound of beaded rain endlessly tapping on the roof, my heart always picking up speed when the sound of the rain gained a mysterious intensity for a half a second before dropping back to its normal level, as though it was trying to punch a hole through to me. I don't know if it's the wind or just a randomly high water density in the rain clouds just above the roof that causes that sudden increase, but it still gets my heart going now.

Below the sound of the roof I hear a steady rushing sound, like a waterfall, of what I guess is rain pouring onto the ground beneath the gutters. It makes me think of billowing foam spray when a wave hits the shore. It's a hypnotic sound. When I focus on it, my eyes pan slowly toward the edge of my head, and I feel a little dizzy. And above it is the rapping on the roof.

We get flash floods here. Maybe one of these days it will lift me up to a different state of mind.