of walking in rain

Driving In Sunday Rain

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Down, down, south, south. Highway 101 on a Sunday morning. A three-hour trip begins in rain, substantial rain, falling straight from the sky. No wind to move it like walls.

I’ve got local radio on. Obscure stations coming in and out, playing equally obscure songs such as something by Maria Muldar I’ve never heard before. Just who was Maria Muldar and why is she singing to me on February on the Oregon Coast?

I dig her voice a lot. It’s got rain in it, which of course strikes me as irony because her biggest hit is about a midnight oasis in a desert.

I see a young woman wearing a small back pack, walking in the shoulder, taking on the phone. I see a young man carrying an enormous black umbrella. I see a woman walking a husky. Shaky-looking men ride shaky-looking bicycles. The men and the bicycles are heavily laden with their stuff of transient life.

Drive on. Watch. Listen to the radio and think about rain, and my recent reunion in rain with a friend.

This feels like it could be a five inch day on the Oregon Coast.

Through a clearcut that seems to last forever, one of the most brutal I’ve ever seen. Murder. Mud. Stumps. Slash piles. Slides. Death. Deconstruction. How can this be legal? Driving through this ecocide darkens the soul.

Water running over the roadways. Puddles. Ponds. Lakes. Police lights. I slow down. I see a wreck on the highway, well, a actually off the highway. A driver apparently splashed through a lake, lost control, flew into the air, and landed in a flooded field. I look for a body and don’t see one.

Big trucks tailgate. Who are these men?

Concentration wears me out. I need a respite from rain. I detour to a tavern I’ve always want to visit. I pull up and go inside. It’s 9:47 in the morning and the joint is open. I order coffee and meet the owner of 42 years, working the Sunday morning shift. We talk. It takes all of 30 seconds to realize I’ve just walked into one the greatest Oregon Tavern Age stories of all time. I take notes. I’ll write it up later. I’ll add it to the book about Oregon Tavern Age life that never seems to end, but how can it when you visit a tavern in a deluge at 9:47 a.m. on a Sunday in February, and a great story greets you like a nice welcoming pat on the back?

The coffee jolts me to life and I drive away, taking my time, noticing rain, wondering if I’ll make it home before a culvert plugs with beaverwood and 101 becomes impassable.

I drive and drive. The creeks flow brown and swollen. The rivers run think with wood. Rocks tumble down from the cliffs. Radio disappears. Into the heart of record rain, but it’s not dark.

Rain, Rain, Rain

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Eight or nine days straight, three or four more forecast. Well, past mere accumulation of inches. Last night it was first a tickle on the roof, then a tap dance, then a torrent, then a gentle sweeping, then plopping until dawn. What variety! A true maestro-less orchestra fallen from the sky! I listened to it in my spaceship as I read a detective novel. I thought of new rain people in my life, including one new extraordinary fanatic who described people who live in Oregon that use umbrellas as, “weak sauce.” I love that line.

Oh the beaverwood I will find when the rains recede and a low tide exposes the rivers and estuaries! I will have days of hauling ahead of me.

Yes, rain, relentless, formidable, but I have managed to keep the beach streak going and I even built a fort yesterday as the light was coming on, a strange little sitting fort, where someone can sit on a round of wood and stare at the ocean. In the coming rainy days, I may erect a crude roof over the fort. It will, of course, leak.

While walking in rain a few mornings ago, I came across the carcass of a whale. A few beachcomber fiends had already sawed away a quarter of the bones! They will find their way into crafts, totems, instruments, and god knows what else. More people should bring whales into their lives, their homes.

A friend sent me a link to a video linked to rain. A song came on the radio that referenced rain in the typically cliched fashion is presented in songs and books and movies. When really falls hard in Oregon, and when one is paying attention, it so much more than just rain. Meteorologists will never grasp this concept.

I caught Casablanca on TCM the other night while it stormed outside. Some great, great, fake rain scenes in that classic. It’s the black and white that does it. And the fedoras and trench coats! Bogie never uses an umbrella! I think. I want to believe he didn’t. You can’t be tough with an umbrella! It’s also impossible to whip out a revolver in a downpour and shoot a Nazi if you are holding an umbrella. You can’t get the drop on anyone if the umbrella is in your gun hand! Bogey drilled that Nazi good, and then the plane with his great love flew away in rain, and he and Louie walked away in the mist and a beautiful friendship had begun. Friendships that begin in rain are something else. They can’t be dissolved.

Rain Falls…

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Rain falls in a new existential place for me, as a new concrete era in my life begins.

I see a man walking down the road, talking to himself. He seems incredibly agitated. He’s waving his arms in the air, his arms colliding with rain.

I write from a forlorn coffee shop in a deserted retail complex. They should turn off the FM lite hits and let rain entertain,

Soon, I will write another letter to a friend marooned in rehab. A letter a day for her. She wrote me that they’re keeping her afloat. I include writing prompts and metaphors collected on beaches. I wish I could mail her a driftwood fort.

My legs feel heavy from miles and miles of walking. But I will keep walking nonetheless. In fact, I walked in rain this morning as the light came up over the mountains.

I might hit the tavern in the afternoon and mingle with the OTAs. The talk will be of rain, as it usually it, but it often proves as dull as endless sunny days. Rain begats stories; the sun is their birth control.

I think about an idea for a story about a man who turns into a beaver. The idea was suggested to me by a friend. I wrote the intro to the story in my head, during the morning walk. There will be a creamy porter on tap in the man/beaver’s lodge. He’ll open canned goods with his two front teeth.

Reunions are in the offing. The forecast for them is unknown.

I watched the animated The Cat in the Hat the other day, the first time since I was a kid. What a delight to realize that this is essentially a rain story. The brother and sister can’t go outside to play because of ferocious rain and are bored out of their minds. Then the Cat arrives (carrying an umbrella!) and mischief begins. Mischief ratchets up considerably when Thing I and Thing II show up. Thing I and Thing II intrigue me. They seem like they belong in a rock band. Perhaps we all occasionally need a visit from a Thing I and Thing II in our lives.

The thought occurs me that I’d love to produce a podcast where the only subject was rain: rain memoirs, rain poems, rain folklore, rain songs, all things rain but nothing about the weather. Who would listen to that show? The rain fanatics are out there. I’ve met hundreds of them in recent years.

Rain, November, 21

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A sizable rain is falling as I write this in the early morning. No light yet. I say sizable, because that means we’ll talk about it later today as we adjust ourselves to rain and more rain.

I have new rain shoes, magnificent Clark’s Wave Walkers, waterproof, brown, with suede, a perfect fit. Brand new and found in a thrift store for $15. They must have originally cost $150. I rank them well up there as one of my greatest Oregon Coast store finds. I’ll walk them in rain until they disintegrate.

The sound of rain on the roof of my new domicile sounds like a little man is raking the roof with a metal rake. It is an entirely new sound. I like it.

I haven’t lived a good rain story in a long time.

I haven’t read a good rain line in a long time.

I have a new job: An Oregon foundation contracted with me to call up prospective coastal home buyers from certain zip codes in California and leave them long voice mails that warn about the depressing effects of rain on their potential investments and relationships. I like the work.

This is a read-two-books-rain day. I’ve got Henry Miller, a historical novel set in the Napoleonic War and some needle-craft magazines ready to go.

Would I give up rain for love in the sun? Sounds like an interesting premise for a Hallmark Channel romance movie that will never be made. About the snow, yes, but never the rain.

Could I write anything interesting where it barely rains?

A reader of the rain book sent me a link to his band’s unreleased song about rain. I liked it.

Only a few rain books left. They have put me in touch with some truly incredible people.

I’d like to teach my rain writing workshop to an incarcerated population.

I met an old man on a hike who said he was a “feet man” when it came to rain, not inches. Oh, I loved that line.

Light is coming up. Time to get out and walk in rain. Join me. Write me of your experience.

Rain Coffee Shop Novel Notes

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In my novel, rain slaps against the windows of the coffee shop. The windows are good. They will hold.

Two Christians talk Christian things. The Bible has some good lines of rain although it basically is a book of the desert.

A man fondles the crucifix he’s wearing around his neck as he reads the Bible.

A crow on the roof seems delighted with his manic splashing in the rain. I’ve seen humans act like that after a long dry spell. Umbrellas automatically prevent this sight, among other beauties of rain.

A school bus full of children rolls by the window. They will go to school, plug in, and learn nothing of rain. I once taught my students about rain. Rain was an essential curriculum.

Rain offer opportunities for the mind; the sun dulls them. Rain is a Russian novel; the sun an airline magazine.

I think about someone who had rain tattooed on her arm. Where is she?

I wonder if anyone is reading my rain book at this exact moment. I have approximately 40 rain books left.

Rain inspires conversations; the sun makes people want to workout. Rain kills fire; the sun sparks fires. When will this country ever elect a man or woman of rain to serve as President?

Rain picks up outside. I sense a deluge is coming. I mean that in reality and metaphor.

Short Story from the City of Rain

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Not a single person is doing anything else in the cafe but interacting with a computer, tablet or phone. I am writing in longhand on paper rescued from a fire, a fire doused by rain.

Dreamy dreamless lite indie pop plays on the speakers. Real human beings didn’t make this music. All in the ones and zeroes.

My coffee is expensive, fried. I miss Yuban, fresh.

I miss the poet of dandelions and hummingbird who works here. We once talked of Alphasmarts and the phony empathy of writers of published empathy. She got it. She won’t be like that.

Rain works its way here and there. No one pays attention to it. It’s not even an abstraction.

A man with a red, white and blue beard walks in carrying a fat book. So much for my theory. Theories are useless, particularly in poetry and therapy. Rivers and oceans don’t need theories. Neither do birds and otters.

Two Californians, the bearded man and the bearded barista discuss their California exodus stories. Everyone is coming to the City of Rain. It is rapidly becoming the City of Umbrella, something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. Things change. Things fall apart. Things cohere. I love the word cohere. No one uses it anymore. Just incoherent. Rain is coherent if you watch it, feel it, rub it in. An umbrella is a chastity belt. (I just ripped off from my rain book.)

I anticipate a meeting later today with a long lost friend, one of the most important friendships of my life, severed in recent years. Can we reattach what was severed between us, and pump some fresh plasma (saltwater) through it, hook it up to a rain IV solution, and let the collaboration function again? It won’t be the same, of course. There will be different circulations and movements. I’m nervous to meet this person. I feel like a different human being since I last saw her. I hope it’s raining when we meet. I’ll throw a little salt into the rain and pray for plasma for the transfusion.

Traffic, traffic, traffic. How it acts like a dark lord upon your soul. It is changing the City of Rain. It already has. I need a new map for the city I grew up in. The old one is gone. Chrissie Hynde wrote something about that. Did the Pretenders have a rain song? “Message of Rain” would have been a great title.

I just heard the word fiance from the bearded barista. It’s been a long time since I heard it. I thought it was dead.

My beard is the heaviest its ever been. I’m becoming a sea level mountain man. Give me some wood to chop or trail to clear. Give me some rain to drink.

Time to move out of the cafe and into the arid requirements wrought by people who are utterly bereft of all the clarifying benefits of rain and have no idea what plasma really is. These are the people who also press their jeans and hashtag for social justice.

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