this kind of rain makes me think about other places

Yesterday it rained summer rain and I forgot how rain seems special in the summer, even here. (Because somewhere in my gut I am hoping the grass will turn green once more and yield kindly under the pads of my feet. The soft hairs on my arms are waiting to know that winter will not come soon, and the rain will always feel like a warm shower). Kori took the chair and sat under the eaves to watch the rain and the lightening in the distance over the hills. The sky had suddenly turned in on us. And I drove down to pick up Bess and saw people walking happily in the rain: two girls holding hands and laughing and laughing, one leaning back so far I thought she would snap. I never loved the windshield wipers more, as I do in summer rainstorms. I didn’t have to try, I could remember the lake in north Idaho, the tiny row boat, and the thunderstorm. The young moose eating lily pads seemed perceptibly close, too close, and the lightening, stark and yellow white against gray clouds, was too close, too close, too. Jake was paddling and laughing and Sade was laughing at me- worried, always worried, about the moose. And our tee shirts grew spotted, then dark, from the huge drops of rain, and we moved towards shore, and ran down the dock, barefooted and laughing towards the house where we watched the storm from the deck and waited for the others to arrive. I am always waiting for something to hit. A car is like a boat in the rain, if you want it to be a boat. Before I knew it, I was in front of Bess’s house. We began chattering and dreamscape was pulled shut. Jordan called, talked animatedly about the hot storm in Colorado right then. Same storm or different storm? Ours was not really a storm at all, just a warm shower and some sparks, not like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming—driving up the steep and twisted dirt road to Bead Lake, my pulse thickening, the rain hard on the windshield. Jordan said good bye, I miss you. The rain stopped.