raindrops keep falling on my head

Have you ever fallen from a really high point? High enough that the fall lasted long enough for you to actually have time to look around and think about it? When I was growing up we used to live in these high rise apartments, like our first three houses were apartments, and we always used to end up on the top floor. So kids being kids, we devised a game where we'd sit on that railing for the stair cases and slide all the way down. This one time, I did it with my eyes closed and didn't realize I was almost at the end until it was too late, so I went flying right off the handle - literally. I actually broke my back that day, couldn't speak for like 30 mins, but that's a different story. I'm telling you, the closer you get to the ground, it stops feeling like you're falling, and starts to seem instead like it's the ground that's rushing up to meet you, and so everything happens faster and seems more urgent.

It's like that when the rain falls. Today I did something I've wanted to do for a long time - I stood under the street lamps and looked up, and watched the rain fall. The drops come and they appear to get faster as they get closer to you, and larger too. But when they hit you, it's like all that speed and momentum suddenly vanishes, because they simply disintegrate around you and you don't feel a thing. It's like you steel your nerves for this hit that you can see coming, and then when it gets here it turns out to be a gentle soothing pat. And the sound, the constant din of the droplets hitting the ground becomes like music. It's this steadfast knocking against the roof. It doesn't stop. It creates a beat. Langston Hughes calls it a lullaby. And you actually do sleep like a baby when it rains all night. The rain does bring with it crazy traffic (which is why I was standing in it to begin with), but it also brings with it renewal. Sort of like redemption. Everything shines brighter after it. It's like a new beginning. It's like it washes away all of our troubles, and gives us a chance to start all over again. Well, it doesn't really, but it should. If you're gonna get drenched, you should at least get something out of it.

You know those little streams that form on the road coz of the rain, like little rivulets leading down into the drain? It's not coz the rain falls with such force it breaks through stone - it falls on us so we all know it doesn't. It's not that stone is easy to break through - we need dynamite to do it ourselves so we know it's not. "The drop of rain maketh a hole in stone, not by violence, but by oft falling," said Hugh Latimer. If there's something we can learn from the rain, that's it. Quiet, patient, unrelenting persistence. Hitting at the same spot and keeping on hitting till we find our level. Till we create a path to our own great success. Because after the rain, follows the sunshine. And then comes the rainbow.

END