Soundtrack

At different points in my life, I have had a batch of songs that have defined that period. But today, as we were waiting for the guy at the gas station to fill the tank of our car, and I heard the rain drumming on the roof, I realized that it was the sound that could very well define me. The soundtrack of my life, if you will. I miss that sound, don't hear it nearly often enough since I've become an "Easterner". And by that I mean having spent more than half of my life in the eastern part of a state that was always in my mind the one to the north. Confusing? Well, perhaps only to those who have no idea where I live. Given a choice, I suppose, I would go home. I miss it terribly sometimes. I miss the sound of the rain. The sound of a nearly every day rain. Not a once-in-awhile-hey-it's-cold-and-dreary-enough-to-throw-a-roast-in-the-oven kind of rain. I love the smells too. The sodden, soggy earth smell. The smell where the ground is saying, "hey, I've had nearly all I can hold." The pines. Oh, how I miss the pines. I miss the sight of leaves pasted to the sidewalk, like the picture up above. The way the light reflects off the asphalt in a city on a rainy night. The rain making divots in puddles. It does something to me. Not just the fact that it elicits the tendency in me to write in fragments. I'm not a fair weather fan. Not at all. Bring on the rain!

photo by D. Shapiro.