Overcast

Finally! It has cooled down around here. The sky is grey and overcast. There is a nice breeze blowing. Everyone feels a little better. I even saw people in pants at the grocery store, you know, as opposed to shorts. What a relief. I think we're all really happy about this. 

I am baking some cookies in celebration of our cooler weather. Isn't that what one does when the temps dip below 80? 

I'm hoping it starts raining. Really I do. I need the rain. I love the rain. Another not so subtle hint of my childhood. But I really miss the rain. Constant rain. I want to hear it on the rooftop of my elementary school. A soft tapping against the red metal roof while I struggle through fractions or whittle down the Dum-Dum sucker that Mrs. Kepford gave us each Friday during silent reading. I want to hear it pinging against the metal of the Volkswagen van while we wait for mom in the grocery store. Hoping she won't make cabbage rolls for dinner, silently wishing for tacos. I want to leave my windows open and smell the rain soaked dirt, really soaked - until you couldn't imagine it could hold any more water. You could hear it making things greener. Truly you could. I want to drive up to the Hoefler's ranch in the night time. Really I wouldn't mind even getting out and opening the 4 gates in the dark to let the car through - even though it terrified me. The payoff was always the smell of rain, mud, moss, darkness - a smogless, pure, earthy smell. I want to squish home from school, my suede mary janes getting soggier by the second, the maroon color of the shoe dye staining the toes of my socks. Brushing under a too-low tree branch as it send cold droplets of water shooting down the back of my neck. I want to hear the tires of the cars as they hit a puddle interrupting and then splattering the rain back down on the asphalt. 

I grew up in a rain soaked piece of geography and I miss it. Miss it more than I miss most anything from my past.