Rain, Rain, Rain
Simba and I splash our way through the lowlands that have flooded last night. The backyard has turned into a small marsh. You shall not pass, the trees seem to say to us from the other side of the moat. We don’t try to, because I’ve just found that my boots leak. We trudge down the road instead, and Simba takes the opportunity to bark at some horses who are just minding their own business.
This is the time of the year when the earth is so wet you can hear it, even when you stand still and your feet stop wringing water from the grass. The oozing, squelching sound mixes with the chirp of peepers at dusk to make it worth your time just to stand there, after closing the chickens in and before locking up for the night, listening to the mystical sounds.
It was in April three years ago when I first came to Ohio. The first time, that is, nursing a possibility that I might stay awhile. The farmer I had just met over the phone had suggested I come stay with his family for a few days to meet them and to see their farm. This would give them a chance to see if I was worthy of their employ. It would give me a chance to see if they and their farm were worthy of me.
What I remember from those few days is that I was almost constantly wet. I had not thought to bring gloves or a hat, but the early morning temperatures dropped to the low 40s. I borrowed the nine-year-old’s stocking cap while we milked the cows. My jeans got wet the first day, but I had only brought one pair.
I fed calves from a bottle with the farmer’s wife and gathered muddy eggs with the children. It was all going to be too much work for me, and I knew it. But the doe-eyed Jerseys worked their charm. I suppose it was those Jersey eyes, plus the promise of a constant supply of good food, that made me ever come back at all. Oh — and it was the children, who liked my company even when I was grumpy and miserable from wearing wet clothes all day.
Three weeks later their nine-year-old helped me unpack my belongings into my new home beside the milkhouse, a fifth-wheel camper with a broken water heater. It was still raining, a slow, constant, dribbling rain. The spot had a panoramic view of the hillside pastures, which were almost a fluorescent green from all the rain. I could see the cows ambling around and going about their business with noses dripping.
“Rain, rain, rain,” said Heidi, sighing, but she didn’t tell it to go away. She asked me one thousand questions, but I didn’t tell her to go away, either.
We set up housekeeping and she continued to talk, telling me things I already knew and helping me unpack dishes into my tiny cupboards. We’ll do all right, I thought. At least I have a change of clothes.
City Dwelling
The parking garage is not my favorite place. In TV shows, it’s often the parking garage where the lawyer gets beat up. I don’t have any enemies that I know of, but still, I am careful, and I park on the edge if I can help it. Finding my car after work always feels like a relief.
It’s not just the parking garage — the city itself gives me an uneasy feeling, truth be told. Maybe we all harbor suspicion towards those things with which we’re unfamiliar. But I feel I am justified in disliking this city. There is very little life, little beauty, little of anything to spark the imagination. Or so it seems to one who hasn’t become familiar enough to feel any affection for the tall buildings, the sidewalks, and the night lights.
When I get into my car, I happen to look straight ahead, and I find I am looking into the window of someone’s apartment. It’s a tall building with walls made of glass, and I can see a great many apartments.
In one, I see a candle lit on a kitchen counter. There is a desk with a computer, where someone might have stayed up long after dark last night working against a due date, just as I had the night before. In another apartment, a hammock hangs high in the corner of the room. There are picture frames, places to sit, and green plants on the sills. I don’t see anyone, but I see signs of living.
Maybe someone lives here because they want to live here. Maybe they can see a beauty, or something else to endear them, that I haven’t noticed yet.
I asked my friend who lives near the children’s hospital if she likes living in the city.
“I love it,” she said. She loves her neighborhood. She loves her little backyard where she’s planted all different kinds of berry bushes along the fence. Her neighbors come over to walk her dog when she’s too busy to come home, and she lets their kids come over and hang out with her. Before she moved here, when she was on her way to a job interview, she got lost in the brick streets of German Village. “I want to live here,” she thought, and now she does.
I stare at the flats in the high-rise for another few seconds. Then I back out and nose my way down the levels of the murky garage back onto the street. How about it — there are signs of life to be found after all. There are real people who make their homes up seven flights of stairs, who eat supper looking out over the river through their glass walls and put on jazz music while they clean up the dishes.