Posted by Ryan
December 16, 2009
I shiver violently, water cascading down my cheeks. A childish grin steals its way across my face and insists on staying—I let it. I turn to look toward a nearby building and, in the glow of a streetlamp, see the wind suddenly take shape and hurl a shower of rain towards me. My body tenses, teeth gritting in anticipation. It hits, soaking me as if from a fire hose. I was already completely drenched; I had been since stepping out of my apartment building and into the downpour, but each gust of wind seems at once to deepen the wetness as if reaching for my soul—for that which it can not obtain. Sirens wail in the distance. This storm came to conquer. I shiver again.
The sky lights up, the creature in the wind lashes out at me again and again, its deafening roar ever louder. My friend jumps in puddles and laughs gleefully, the sound audible over the thunder. I fear the storm for a brief moment. I fear what it can do, what it could bring. It’s trying to crush us in its onward march. And yet, the rain seems to wash away my fear. The water is a symbol—a sign: a cleansing, comforting power that can almost be heard to say, “you’re on the right path, fear not.”
The storm came to conquer, but cannot conquer me. The rain washes away my fear, warms my heart. And I am conquered.
(This happened back in August and was perhaps the first day I truly admitted to myself that I liked living in New York.)
Posted by Ryan
November 30, 2008
You might think, upon reading the title of this post, that rain and water always go together. Well, I’m here to tell you that, as matter of fact, they usually do. I’ve never experienced acid rain*, or any other type of non-watery rain. All I know is that it rained today, and there was water involved.
* I suspect acid rain isn’t really acid in the way that I usually think of acid. What first comes to my mind when I think of acid? Stomach acid. Why? Because it happens to be inside of me. Not that I always think of myself and my stomach first. Really. The first thing on my mind when I wake up is usually myself; how tired I am, etc. Just the other day, though, I thought of my computer instead**.
The second thing that comes to mind when I think of acid is a car battery. Those are the only two things I thought of before reading the wikipedia article about acid rain. So now I’m thinking of other things, like brook trout and a girl named Brooke I knew in elementary school (no, she doesn’t have a wikipedia page***, but the page about brook trout had a link to a Brooke Trout, who apparently sings or something and the word ‘Brooke’ made me think of the Brooke I knew a long time ago). Why? Because that’s how wikipedia works. You read one thing, but then you click on a link and the next thing you know you’re learning about popular sovereignty.
In case you were curious, it took 41 clicks to get to popular sovereignty from acid rain.
So, I like rain. Unless it’s acid rain, but since I’ve never experienced any such thing, I think it’s safe to say “I like rain” without any further qualifying statements, except when deemed necessary by any extraneous circumstances which may or may not matter.
** Please don’t take anything I said in this post seriously.
*** I didn’t actually check.
