I love the rain. I love the sound of it, especially as I’m waking up or going to sleep. It’s a primal womb sensation. Sometimes, I’ll awaken in the middle of the night and just lie there, listening to it, like a 5-year-old who is afraid he might miss something if he’s lulled back to dreamland.

This morning, the soft patter of raindrops splattering upon the walkway down the side of the old house we live in…made me smile. Yawning, I just curled up and counted my blessings. The Earth was being washed of its sins.

It Never Rains in Southern California is a classic tune by Albert Hammond that rings so true. Here it is via YouTube:

Got on board a westbound seven forty-seven
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
Ooh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true …

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

— Written by Albert Hammond & Mike Hazlewood
Performed by Albert Hammond
Copyright © 1972

I miss the big thunderstorms that I grew up with in West Virginia, however. There’s nothing like the deep rumble of god’s displeasure at mankind’s muckin’ about, dirtying up her world, so she has to wash it, occasionally. I’ve been blinded by a flash of lightning from what seemed, then, to be only a few yards away. If that wasn’t cosmic enlightenment, I don’t know what else we’re supposed to witness. Drenched in the wetness of the divine…is sublime.

Here are two more great rain songs I remember fondly. You can’t beat the sorrowful lilt of Gordon Lightfoot in Rainy Day People to sear an image into your soul. Click the triangle, below, to listen to the tune:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call.
Rainy day people don’t talk,
they just listen till they’ve heard it all.
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell you
They’ve been down like you.
Rainy day people don’t mind if you cry a tear or two…

Plus, Early Morning Rain, another lonesome favorite:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

In the early morning rain
With a dollar in my hand
With an achin in my heart
And my pockets full of sand.
Im a long way from home
And I miss my loved ones so
In the early morning rain
With no place to go.

— Written & Performed by Gordon Lightfoot
Rain Day People Copyright © 1975
Early Morning Rain Copyright © 1966

When I was a young teen, my father helped my brother and me build a two-story red oak cabin with a tin roof in the woods. There was nothing more peaceful than lying in the top bunk bed, smelling the hickory smoke from the pot belly stove as it curled toward the exposed rafters and hearing the soft wet cadence of Mother Nature’s fingertips drumming a heavenly beat upon my napping head.

You’d think I would have had more sense tapped into me, at an early age — what with my dad’s rough hand on my behind, many times, and the good lord raining down chastisement from above — but young lads come factory-equipped with Stubborness v1.0 and Mean-Streak Basic. Of course, I’m not the same little boy I used to be. By now, I’ve upgraded those beginner programs several times over.

As I grew older and discovered girls, the rowdy all-weekend camp-outs, ghost stories and rough-and-tumble brawls with the boys gave way to a more sensitive exploration of my world. Lying in a sleeping bag with my fellow counselor at 4-H camp, kissing and cuddling on the back porch of the craft house in the wee hours of the night, we were making something, I’m sure, if not what our camp instructors intended.

She and I listened to the stealthy approach of the summer rain upon the surface of Cedar Lakes and we learned things the teachers would never have taught us. Together, we discovered the same soft and sensual prelude to wetness that is a gift from god. Rain is sex.

During duty to my country, serving in the U.S.A.F. in the late ’70s, I was stationed in the Mojave Desert at Victorville. This was an exercise in perspective. George Air Force Base was my introduction to sunny Southern California and I spent many a weekend, off-duty, hiking about this wide expanse of arid terrain known as a rain-shadow desert. The Mojave and surrounding areas are called that because of the high western mountains, which block the movement of wet winter storms like towering, dirty sentinels with an aversion to bathing.

In the three-and-a-half years I spent there, it rained about three-and-a-half days, total. Mostly, it was windy and hot in the summer and windy and cold in the winter. The Mojave is a great place for fighter pilots and rattlers due to the abundance of superb weather for which both are perfectly suited. You can easily tell the difference between these cold-blooded predators: one slithers about, prepared to strike at anything that threatens its domain; and the other can usually be found sunning itself on a rock, so be careful where you step.

Between punching Uncle Sugar’s meal ticket and eating enough Shit-on-a-Shingle to fully appreciate its rank moniker, I traveled extensively throughout the desert Southwest and, though I love its beauty and majestic charm, discovered quickly that I was one of the Rainy Day People. If I go too long without walking in the rain, then a part of me shrivels like a shunned shrub in the Devil’s Tea Garden.

True, I’ve yet to experience a rainforest or the Pacific Northwest, so I may find out just how much I appreciate sunshine, as well, but I intend to visit the land of emerald views, this year, and make the comparison.

I have been thoroughly drenched, tired and miserable in the rain, at times, during many an outdoor excursion, which only proves that everything is relative and all things in moderation are maxims to be remembered. But if the higher power made me choose either sunshine or rain, then I’d choose rain, for it is the life’s blood of our world and without it, all would perish. The planet and its word-wide-web of species are made up mostly of water. Yes, I know that sunshine is equally important, but you get my drift.

I am concerned about humans’ continued encroachment upon fragile ecosystems that do not have the requisite amount of water and other resources to sufficiently sustain the scarcity of life already living there. Yet, sprawling cities continue to rise from the desert floor, skyscrapers towering above the dusty plains, and the ant-like homo sapiens follow the scent of their scouts into the unnatural worlds of Las Vegas and its like, wagering on more than a family’s life-savings. They are playing with their very lives and that of the planet’s, as well.

This is not natural. It may be fun for a moment, but the amount of energy, water and resources needed, which allow these monstrous creations to exist, places an exorbitant strain on the ecosystem. These incessant and excessive demands on Mother Earth, loving though she may be, are like those of a selfish, whining, snot-nosed kid clamoring for just one more cookie before bedtime. It’s time to wake up. Don’t be surprised if mom backhands you when she simply can’t take it, anymore. You’ll have no one else to blame, because you didn’t bother to read the signs. May it rain, soon, and wash those rose-colored glasses you’re wearing.

Not desiring a car, for obvious reasons, I enjoy walking to work and everywhere I go in this beautiful paradise by the sea. When it rains, I can’t wait to get out in it and feel my past come flowing back, as dependable as the evening tide, to drown me in memories from a simpler time and a cleaner world.

Sometimes, I put away my umbrella, purposefully eschewing protection, and turn towards Mother Nature’s moist embrace. Her soft misty kisses grace my face and I smile, remembering the night on the covered bridge with my first love, the raging torrent at Dolly Sods that nearly swept us away and the innumerable moments of my life punctuated with wetness. I love the rain.

The Kat