Rain lets me breathe

I just love it when the weather has been really stuffy and almost suffocatingly warm all day and so all you can possibly do is close all the blinds, throw on shorts and a comfy, loosely fitting shirt (preferably the black one that has a huge middle finger on the back and reads You’re #1! below it that one of your favorite Kentucky people gave to you), sink onto the bed and watch nine Gilmore Girls episodes in a row.

Then, I noticed that the light outside had changed into a gloomy shade - and sure enough huge dark, beautiful, thundering storm clouds were gathering on the horizon. I threw all the windows open and cold, windy air streamed inside, carrying with it the scent of summer and the first raindrops.

Rain - it seriously is what I like most about summer. And not just because it calms down my allergies.

I remember, one time, in Kentucky (where summer rain storms are even so much better than here), the first falling raindrops made me so silly happy that I ran right outside. At first I only stood on the porch, watching the driveway concrete being sprinkled until every last inch had been touched by a drop of water.

The rain kept coming down stronger and stronger and finally I jumped down the front steps, spread my arms out wide and twirled and danced around in circles, feeling as though I was playing the main character in a cheesy Hollywood flic. My naked feet were patting through the water on the concrete and the warm rain was trickling down my neck. I could feel sand and tiny rocks between my toes and I could smell that unmistakable, summer-y scent: a mixture of dark, brown earth and grass, of flowers, of water and sand and hot asphalt; of the troubled skies. I also remember that the soft rain and the scratchy concrete made a wonderful opposites-attract.

And I remember feeling so very, very happy and peaceful, grateful and not wanting for anything to change.

Any time I see storm clouds approach now, or when I hear the first raindrops hit the roof, I have to open the windows and smell, hear and feel the summer. In that moment, right before the storm really hits it off, when I breathe through my mouth - I can actually taste it as well. It’s in the air, it’s everywhere.

Everytime I do that now, I remember the way I felt back then in Kentucky whenever it rained. Or the sun was out. Or it snowed. I remember how genuinely happy I was there, how much I loved life with all my heart and soul in those eleven months.

Funny, how things change. And how rain has always brought back the best of memories to me.