Tag Archives: Rain

Depth

20 Dec

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“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time…” –F. Scott Fitzgerald

First light, and Hallie is coming down the stairs.  I hear her footsteps as she pads her way along the dark hallway and into to our room.

“Da?” she asks, standing expectantly at my side. I look up at her solemn face, then lift the covers and she crawls in.  “Da,” she whispers again, exhaling as she cuddles back down into sleep.

Raising the blinds, I see snow.  First of the year, more than expected and still falling.  Hallie supplants me, cuddling into Amy as I head upstairs into the hesitant glow of a stalled sunrise.

Showered and dressed, stepping outside is a release.  Everything a little brighter, a little fresher.  The snow is untouched and the garbage cans are frosted white.  The sky, however, broods.  A gunmetal, end-of-the-world gray, more twilight than dawn.  Even the snow is lifeless, finding too little light to sparkle.

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At Family Corner, Jen clocks me at the door, “What up Bell?”

“Nothing much.  How are you”

“Morning Derek,” shouts George, moving fast over the carry-out orders.

My spirits rise.

“Egg and cheese,” she asks?

“Yes please, and medium coffee, skim milk.”

“Sugar?”

“No, no sugar.”  But as she turns I reconsider, “I’m sorry, yeah, one sugar would be great.”

The cup is warm, and I bask in the flow – the gentle banter, and the comfort of having a place here.

“Egg and Cheese?”  George is looking at me, eyebrows raised.

“That’s mine.”

He tosses it over, rings me up and I’m on my way.

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The snow’s turning to rain.  Sipping my coffee, I move fast, making it to the train relatively dry.  Up the steps and onto the platform, I’m just in time to watch a train pull away.

I walk back to the farthest reaches of the roof, lean against the large metal storage bin and take in the view – my neighborhood from west to east.  The great arch of Hellgate Bridge, rising from the railroad tracks as they make their way over the river before bending north to Harlem, The Bronx and New England; the smoke stacks at Con Ed and their rising steam, cotton on slate.

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The tenements climb Crescent Street, and the steeple of Immaculate Conception stands over it all.  Buildings fall away to the east, and the sky grows large over the Steinway factory.  A jet takes off from LaGuardia and I follow it until, magically, it’s gone.  Vanished into the mist.

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The train arrives and the car is warm.  Stepping in, I take my favorite seat.  Lulled by the rain, I unwrap my sandwich and look out toward the city.  And suddenly I see myself swimming in a vast, unfathomable ocean, and realize that I need to go deeper.  More a feeling than a thought, I’m not sure what this means.

The train begins to move.

Making its way through Queens, small flocks of black parkas clamor for seats at every stop until, finally, we begin the slow turn toward Queensboro, arcing toward the city like the grande dame of all rollercoasters, sweeping into view the 59th Street bridge  and the skyline beyond.  Gravity takes hold and we plunge into the station, pausing briefly for the requisite running back and forth, before continuing on, down to the streets and further still, out of the rain and into the darkness.

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Winter Rain

5 Mar

Rain

Morning darkness, and the house is at its most gentle, whispering me awake.  Amy has gone upstairs to prepare for her shower while I lie warm beneath the covers, listening for the water, shaken by a dream.

I’m on a ramshackle camping trip, a bunch of us kids unloading gear from our beat up cars and station wagons, carrying it through the grounds of a small carnival to the old houses beyond the fairground.  And somewhere on this journey, it seems, I have made a friend.  She has short dark hair and great big eyes, and although we’ve just met, we’re like puppies in the back seat, leaning into each other, shoulder to shoulder, heads close, laughing, and then going quiet as the miles roll by because nothing has ever felt this good.

Then it begins to rain, and everyone’s a step ahead.

Tents have gone up, a garage floor has been cleared, and while I stand outside, my ratty, unrolled sleeping bag growing heavier by the minute, I realize I have nowhere to go.  She stands at the door of her tent, wringing water from a cloth, and even though she has plenty of room, there’s no way I can ask.  It’s embarrassing just to be standing there.  I move away, into the garage, out of the rain.  But looking around I see all the spaces have been taken.  Busy strangers ignore me as they smooth their pallets across the floor.

And then she’s there, her sleeping bag spread out, and she’s inviting me to join her.

“Really?”

“Yes!” she says, smiling, shaking her head.  I step lightly on the sleeping bag, and we laugh because it’s a little squishy from the rain.

Suddenly my knowledge accelerates, and in a flash, I see everything that’s about to happen . The longing, the intensity, and the unbearable sweetness of this friendship going somewhere I had never thought possible.

And then, for the first time, I remember my kids.  And Amy.  She would know.  And even were I willing to risk that, this young woman clearly has no idea I’m married.  My ring has been lost.  I’d be lying to her as well.

Morning comes.  The rain has stopped.  Friends and neighbors appear.  We share a big box of raisin bran.  It’s the best raisin bran I’ve ever tasted.  Revelatory.  As people pack all around us, I look for her, but she’s nowhere to be found.  Maybe she’s in the car.

The water downshifts to the low hum of the shower, and I have to get up.  Leaving the warmth of the bed for the cool morning air, the anger builds like a cloud in my head.  Tight and sore, my achilles tendons play hell with my balance as I head down the hallway, passing all the stuff we don’t really need.

She took me in out of the rain.

Hand on the rail, I climb the stairs,  squinting and unsure; not yet ready for the light of day.

B&W Rain

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Listening to the Rain

20 May

We sat on the back steps and watched the lightning play across the sky.  Tim was with us for a time, but then he went inside, leaving Heath and I alone, counting the seconds between lightning and thunder.

Heath has always  feared storms, demanding that blinds be closed at the lightning’s first flash, and burying himself beneath pillows when the thunder begins to roll.  But tonight I had a hunch.

“Heath, do you want to come watch the storm with us? ”

“No!” came the reply, muffled beneath the sofa cushions.

I let it go, stepping out into the darkness, only to return a few minutes later.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come outside?  It’s perfectly safe.  The storm is still miles away and we’ll come inside if it gets too close.”

“Really?” he asked doubtfully, peeking from beneath his shelter.

“Oh, yeah” his Uncle Tim replied. “I’m gonna come inside before I get rained on.”

And suddenly, surprisingly, he was at my side, a boy-sized bundle of curiousity and trust.  He stayed close as we walked out onto the back deck.

As a child, I would snuggle down as storms blew in off Lake Michigan and the freshwater wind whipped the sheer cotton curtains over my little double bed.  The thunder would crack, impossibly loud, and my heart would jump as I clenched my eyes shut; relaxing again only as I listened to the waves roaring in the distance, imagining them creeping across the sand, and up to our very door. 

A tornado once dropped a car into my grandparents’ front yard, it’s panicked driver bolting through their living room and into their basement, passing on the way my grandfather, calmly watching his beloved Detroit Tigers.  

And I remember the Fourth of July when lightning mingled with the fireworks.  Later that night the sirens sounded and we made our way to the basement with our pillows, blankets and portable radio, waiting sleepily until the storms had passed.  Mom was up early the next morning to visit dad in the hospital.  He was coming home in a few days.

We watched the dark clouds move in from the southwest.  I had told Heath that that if he counted the time between the lightning and thunder, he’d know how far off the storm was.  He loved this, and clung to the knowledge fervently, insisting that I begin to count out loud whenever the lightning crackled, and then nodding sagely when he heard the thunder.

“The center of the storm is four miles away.” he’d say.

“That’s right,” I said. And then we’d wait to start again.

My mom didn’t find my dad that morning.  She walked into an empty room.  He had died during the night.  While we were huddled in the basement, listening to the radio, and waiting for the world to calm, he had pulled aside his covers, gently stood up, and made his way to the window.  

“The center of the storm is nine miles away!”

“Your right. It’s moving away from us now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the numbers are getting bigger, that means the storm is getting further away.”

I see him so clearly sometimes.

“Is there going to be any more thunder?”

“Just rumbles.  Nothing to worry about.”

Standing by that window, seeing his reflection in the darkness, and then looking beyond it. 

“You were so brave, Heath.”

“Yeah.”

Watching the storm, missing his family, and listening to the rain.

 

 

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