Weather Memories

Listen to the rhythm of the rain falling,
Say you're gonna change your foolish ways.
Make a promise, break a promise in the same day,
It goes the same way, anyway.
- From Stray, by R. Frame

Riding my bike into town for a slice of pizza, then stuck there for 20 minutes under the shop's awning during the downpour. I alway liked the coolness of air that follows a thunderstorm.

The feel of warm brown paint on my bare feet on the veranda of the old research house at Plum Island Sound. That old house smelled musty on warm days.

Sleeping in my old Civic in the small parking lot behind Nauset Sports, in Orleans. It rained all night, and I left a window cracked open. The rear seats were folded flat and I lay diagonally across the back area. My head rested on a pillow on an updside-down bucket placed behind the front-passenger seat. I didn't feel rested in the morning.

The rhythmic splattering sound of sleet against the window. Old windows in old buildings were always heavy, and they never slid well in their tracks because of the many coats of paint. The heating pipes at 14 Russell St. always ticked and frequently banged.

Whenever it snowed the porch at the Historic College Inn in Northampton was covered with a thin layer of snow. The porch was recently painted grayish blue, and it was always slippery. I'd open the door, check my mail -- nothing ever but my New Yorkers -- and the stairway was always dark.

[ca. June 05]