rain.

I'm sitting in the gravel parking lot. Rain is pounding the roof of my car. I turn off the iPod, turn off the engine, and lean back into my seat. No one's in the parking lot - everyone's already inside. I close my eyes, and the splattering of the water just above my head puts me in a tent, camping, in the rain. Warm, inside of a sleeping bag, listening to the great emptiness that is actually the complete opposite of emptiness. I open my eyes, and heave a great sigh. Things are weighing heavy on my mind these days. I let my vision blur. The pines and sagebrush whip in the wind, and I'm at the coast. The gray clouds move back and forth, dissipating but pushing forward. I'm just beyond the water. Just over the dunes, just beyond the sand, I can hear the beach just below the rain on the roof of the car. I'd rather be either of those places right now than where I am. My chest rises and falls with another heavy breath. I'm in Central Oregon, and it's early June, and it's been pouring for weeks. Everyone's complaining. 

But I don't mind the rain. I sit there longer, listening, feeling the rain coming down. It may be the last time I get to hear it on my roof for three or four months. I soak it in like the earth soaks it in.