Have You Ever Seen the Rain

Only in the early morning do I like to wander my neighborhood street in my pajamas. I try to smooth down my hair a little, maybe fold it up in a hair band before I head out, but I invariably go for the flip-flops, the flannel and the sunglasses. It's a winning combination before 8am.

Anyway, I've got a date with my kids, and they generally don't care if I look like a scarecrow or a ragamuffin. My husband's usually asleep, so I have no one to impress as we head out on the street with our parade of bikes and a red wagon in which my youngest sits with his stuffed tiger like a little prince. We're out to be outside, a place too little explored by human beings nowadays, out to get our exercise at the possible expense of our neighbor's sleep as the wagon rattles over each seam in the sidewalk.

This morning we were out a little later than I like. It's still hot here, and anytime after 7:30 is a little late for me not to at least be flirting with some shade, but we headed east to the end of the street, bravely into the sun. Then as we came back, I saw a dense, lonely gray cloud suspended in the blue above our gargantuan eucalyptus.

How pretty, I thought - the cloud and the tree bearing each other company in the canvas.

A moment later droplets of water hit my shoulders. I wondered bemused who or what could have flicked water at me. Then I noticed the dark quarter-sized cicles multiplying on the concrete, saw the light curtains in the air, heard the pattering increase, and I looked up into that cotton-candy cloud to see it shredding and shedding water in full sunlight.

I wanna know
Have you ever seen the rain
Comin' down
A sunny day

J.C. Fogerty is a little hard to understand, but I believe that's the way the CCR song goes, and today I could answer yes. Yes, Mr. Fogerty, I have. What's more, my kids could answer yes, and they babbled excitedly at nature's slide of hand. As my kids and I wandered beneath our own private patch of drizzle with irrepressible smiles of spontaneous joy for the simple, cool rain, it ran ahead of us northeast up the street before it left us, the damp memory evaporating from our heads and shoulders in the warmth of the sun.