By Louie Ferrera

It’s a rain dance out there today, a veritable, seasonal soiree. Drip, drop, splish, splash, pitter, patter, an onomatopoetic smorgasbord of sounds. Cars whizz by on the freeway, their tires hiss like bacon on a hot griddle. Ducks are delighted. Frogs flip and flop happily across the wonderfully wet grass. The pavement has been transformed into a mosaic of puddles and rivulets where staccato raindrops create fleeting points of diamond light. Oak leaves take flight, sailing through the air like hundreds of amber and brown butterflies. Some of them end up plastered to the street like puzzle pieces waiting to be put together. The trees with leaves still left on them are heavy with moisture, their branches bow in supplication as if to give thanks for this nourishing rain. 

With my boots on I slip and slide across the lawn like an olympic figure skater. The judges all give me 10’s. And the mud! The sweet smell of freshly made mud is like nothing else on Earth. It’s the smell of life. No water, no life. No mud either. A few worms are wriggling on the sidewalk, having been temporarily washed from their flooded dens. Exposed, some will be meals for the hungry robins. Such is the life of an earthworm in a rain storm.

Gratitude and joy overflow from me as I watch this movie unfold. I feel like Gene Kelly right now. All I need is a lamp post and an umbrella and I can do a little “singing in the rain” of my own. What am I waiting for?