I love the rain. I have a lodge in the countryside and like to sit on its veranda and gaze across the lake as the rain lashes down. I hear it drumming on the roof, a steady, reliable rhythm. I can see the large droplets cascading down into the lake, striking the foliage that grows on the edge of the water, the splashes and rivulets visible from my vantage point. After a time I am always compelled to leave my seat and walk the short distance from my lodge to the lakeside. I have brought most of my girlfriends here. It is tranquil and beautiful. The lake is about a two miles long and half a mile wide and is rather deep. Excellent for fishing. One can walk all the way around the lake and I have done so with my girlfriends as we strolled through the woodland, isolated from the rest of the world.
I like to stand on the edge of the water and stretch my arms out wide and tilt my head upwards and feel the heavy drops of rain pelt against my face causing me to blink as they land on my eyes. The cold water trickles down my cheeks and over my chin as the steady patter continues, eventually soaking into my clothing. I often lose track of how long I stand there, feeling the water striking me and then running off me. I never feel cold and I don’t notice the wet, not really. I feel clean though, the cleanest I’ve been as the edifying pluvial downpour continues. Each drop that hits me seems to take with it the dirt and disease, casting it down onto the ground beneath me. The impurities are washed away, the droplets scouring the contamination from my skin. The water strikes me and the spray that rises dashes the filth away, the mire rinsed from me. It feels to me as if God has sent his purity to scrub away the muck, grime and pollution that clings me to me for far too long. I am soon soaked as the water dilutes the sin and flushes away the stains.
There is innocence in the rain. For however so long it is that I embrace the downpour, I am divested of my cynicism and just for a while everything I have ever done, everything I have ever said no longer matters. I have been stripped of it all. I would stand like this with Karen. She would adopt the same pose. I would hear her gentle laugh as she opened her mouth to let the rain get inside of her and she held my hand, both of us arms outstretched as if we were being crucified. Even now as I close my eyes against the deluge I hear that soft laugh but I know she is not besides me anymore. She knew what the rain did and does for me. She understood.