rainy morning monday

After a weekend of perhaps 6 hours of sleep total, I let myself go to bed at 10 pm last night.

I woke up at 7 am to the most lovely sound one can wake up to---rain outside my window. It was only the second time this happened this semester. I remember the last time--perfectly.

Walking to work for my 8:15 am shift at the library, a wave a homesickness overtook me. It wasn't for Westford or Vienna, but for Michigan. For the cottage. For the nights when it rains and we go to the movie theater in Cheboygan, and driving home mom would always slow down on the back road. She couldn't bear to drive over any frogs hopping around the muddy, pot-holed dirt road that lead to our cottage. Alice and I would be forced out of the car to get the little guys out of the road. At first it drove me crazy, but when I became the one who had to drive, I found myself slowing down and waiting as well.

When it rains at the cottage, the normal pattern of each day gets interrupted. Life becomes a massive Michigan Rummy marathon, or a reappearance of the classic board game "Dweebs, Geeks, and Weirdos". Other times I would be coerced into a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle of sailboats with my mom. Cookies are baked, tea is drunk by the gallon, and we're bundled up together in socks and sweatshirts to finish chapters of novels if we can escape the sweet lulling of naptime.

I remember a few mornings sleeping out on the dock in my sleeping bag (I hardly ever sleep inside if I can avoid it) when I woke up to the softest of rains caressing my cheeks. It was like a puppy nudging my face to be taken out, or a lover trying to let you sleep, but wanting so badly for you to open your eyes and reassure them that your existence is more than a dream. I eventually opened my eyes, made a pot of coffee, and went back outside to sit and be lulled and caressed by the sweet rain. At this point in my life, I sweetened my coffee with maple syrup--something I picked up from my crazy New Yorker friend at Interlochen.

....I think I'm ready for a vacation. I'm ready to have my week in Michigan with my family, and to be so happy. Last summer was the first summer I was sad in Michigan, and once is enough.

Rain, rain, please don't go away. Keep on coming down today. Only 18 days for the flowers to grow until my birthday.

-lab