There’s a front to the north and it’s high and it’s deep and it’s dark and it’s nearly here. I can see it from this window, and I saw it from my car window on the way to this window. I saw it from my house. It’s dark and it’s gray and it’s smooth. It starts in the West and it lasts through the East. The North, that’s where it mostly is. There’s no wind yet, but soon there will be. It’ll push and it’ll bend and when it’s here you’ll know it. Cars drive by, but they’re driving faster than yesterday. Faster than they will tomorrow. They’re driving with their lights on, to somewhere, to a garage or an underpass or the faux safety of a roadside ditch. The storm is coming.
It’s dark now and I can hear the rain hitting the top of the metal chimney that carries the winter smoke from my office fireplace. The wind is blowing. And the cars are driving, faster still. It’s a summer storm, and if it’s like the scant few other summer storms we’ve dealt with it’ll be here and then it’ll be gone, and the old men of the world will look at their rain gauge and tell us it rained a half an inch. Maybe more, maybe less. It’s raining now, but barely. I don’t think we’ll get to a half an inch, maybe a quarter, but I haven’t a rain gauge because the woman at the hardware store told me that I’m not yet old enough to buy one. That I could have someone older purchase one for me, but that’s the best I could do.
It’s still darker to the north but it isn’t raining anymore. Those were just a few drops, not really rain. To rain is to pitter and to patter and to last for more than just a bit. We’ve had bits of rain this summer, full on deluges at times, but what we haven’t had is a day off. A day of dark and rain, a day where it seems completely fine to sit in front of a computer screen and not find distraction out each window. We haven’t had those days during this summer of sun, and how I’ve missed them. A reset is what they offer, and a reset is what we haven’t received.
When storms come, they rarely last. They build and they twist and they look like they’re going to deliver a knock out blow, but they hardly ever do. Instead they just come and they shake and they make a mess of the lawn with early fall leaves that have no business falling in August, but fall they do. The wind is dying now. The sky is brightening. The thunder sounds more distant. The cars are still racing with their lights on but I think they might always drive like that. The edge of the storm isn’t smooth anymore, it’s rough and it’s jagged and it looks like it’s lost most of its push. This isn’t a storm at all. This isn’t a rainy day at all, it’s just a day with some rain.