Understanding Rain

It rained today, and I woke up with the soft pitter-patter of the droplets hitting my windows. It made me think about home, and how when I was a little girl I used to be lulled to sleep by the rain on the windows, and the distant whistles of the trains a few miles distant. Somehow that made life peaceful, soothing, calming, understanding... and I would drift off to sleep.
I love rain, I really do. When I was little I used to puddle-hop after the rain showers. There's a funny picture of my sister and I, with our plastic inflatable pool draped over our heads (inflated, of course, so you can only see us from the waist down), jumping in puddles. I hate raincoats, and I only wear them it it's a cold and windy rain. My favorite time of day is the calm before the storm, the warm calm breeze, the smell in the air that says as clear as anything, "there's rain coming."
Rain brings renewal. It waters the plants, it soothes the earth, it smoothes the earth.
Rain brings new life, and second-chances. It cleans all the dust off your tires, and prepares you for the next new challenge
Rain brings endings. It clears the chalk-dust off the driveway, flattens the ridges, covers the world and then disappears.
It makes me think. Tears can bring sad endings, but sometimes if there's no ending we miss the great new opportunities that arise, caught up in our own little present. Rain can be powerful. Water is the most deadly substance on earth. People can die from too much water (drowning/flood/"Chinese water torture"), or too little water (drought/dehydration). And don't forget those tornadoes and hurricanes.
I love storms, somehow I find them soothing. There was a hurricane that came near my campus last semester, it knocked down a really big tree. Want to know where I was? I did my homework in the lounge, staring out the window at the lightnight show. When I finished, I ran outside and sat in the rain and the wind, sitting on the mud-plastered tree that had been knocked down a half-hour previous. I love storms. There's nothing like the raw power in a thunderstorm, or the sheer might of a hurricane, to put humankind in our place. We can't come close to the beauty and the power of nature. Nature can kill and nourish at the same time, bringing water and uprooting trees, causing brush fires that kill the weeds and leave the young trees to grow taller and stronger to face the coming winter. It's only when we get in the way that we find "problems" with Nature - she can take care of herself without our help.
I just love water. It renews, it refreshes, it quenches the soul. And behind it, there is a sense of Power, or Strength, that we puny mortals will never manage to overcome. We cannot match Nature, we can only learn by example.
I love water.