Going Home

It's raining hard here. So hard that I can't hear the cars pass through the parking lot just 20 yards out. I can't hear the sounds that usually keep me up at night. It's all rain. It's the hardest it has rained since I've been here, and I've been keeping track. The slabs of concrete where we park our cars have become little lakes, and our cars, boats, docked until summer. In a few days I'll pull anchor and steer home, back to Iowa, like the water that is falling now into the Minnesota which will flow into the Mississippi and eventually to the Gulf. It's only natural.

There's just a spray of wet below the railing of my porch, about 4 inches deep. The rain can't reach me here, and the sun can't either. I have five potted plants shoved up against two windows. Two have grown catawampus towards the sun and I fear that one day they'll topple over on themselves; the cactus has turned brown in the back, but the spikes still sting; the bamboo has thrived; the last, a mystery breed, has died. But, I'll still pack all five up with me when I go, hoping for full recovery for most and one last shot at rehabilitation for the last.

The rain has slowed to a dull static - a song stuck between two frequencies - I hear it, know it, and I want to sing it, but just can't tune it in. There is thunder and lightning to my right, I'm guessing somewhere over the pond at Lyon's Park. I'll miss that pond, more specifially, the goose-shit covered path that circled it and the familiar goose-honks that followed me as I walked it. I'll miss my daily walk in the other direction too - to campus - on the wide, biker friendly sidewalks. I'll miss pushing the button at the corner for the little white man to show and usher me to the other side. I'll miss the faces too, and conversations about writerly things. I'll miss complaints about shared superiors, shared spaces, and shared frustrations.

Although it's almost midnight and so blue you have to look really closely to make sure it's not black, I can tell that the rain has stopped by looking at the little triangle of light coming from the streetlamp. There aren't any raindrops passing through it. There are frog calls coming from the pond beyond the parking lot, wet car tires over wet blacktop, and a steay drip from the roof to a metal grill lid on the lawn below...a rhythmic ting ting, ting ting...incessant as a leaky faucet.

As I said, it's almost midnight and the rain has stopped. So, there's not a very compelling reason for me to stay on this porch. Some rain will be absorbed into the soil. What doens't fit will be carried to the river via the sewers, and in a few days we'll both be barreling toward the Mississippi.