Rain, Rain Go Away....

Yesterday, during one of the brief respites from the deluge, I went out to do a few errands. I passed four little girls dressed in brightly colored slickers and boots sitting on the curb and singing in their sweet little voices, “Rain, rain go away, come again some other day...” I hadn’t heard that song in years and, sung by four little girls, it was especially sweet. I find it lovely that there are still children in this world who know such songs.

But, I’m telling you, I’m sick of rain. It’s a funny thing because I do actually like dark, cool days. I get more done because the temptation to go out and play is so much less. But enough is enough. Normally our springs here are filled with flowers but this year the lilacs, wisteria and tree peonies — my favorite of all flowers — lasted half the time that they normally do. The rhododendron seem to be flourishing but everything else is waterlogged and brown and collapsing under the rain before their time.

Yesterday I called Rebecca and she said that she hadn’t left the house in a couple days. Of course, if I lived where she does, in Walker Hancock’s old studio deep in the woods surrounded by tall trees and quarries, I’d probably never leave. She is leaving next week for South Carolina to see an exhibition of work by Anna Hyatt Huntington. Huntington, known locally as the sculptor of Gloucester’s statue of Joan of Arc, is the subject of Rebecca’s doctoral dissertation. Somehow the idea of writing a dissertation on Huntington, while living in Hancock’s studio, seem s just too wonderful to me.

Then Leslie called. She had just come back from an Essex County Needleworker’s Guild meeting and was bubbling with ideas. She has been designing shawl pins like crazy and each one is more beautiful than the last. Take a look at them here. Leslie keeps encouraging me to attend one of these needlework meetings. I am at that point in my life where I am trying to protect my time. Now that Mark’s book is 98% done (please God, make him stop changing things!) And I am back at work on my novel, I have become very selfish with my time. Leslie’s roommate Maureen took the phone and asked how my darling-killing was coming.

So, it is raining and my friends are busy and so am I. Yesterday I spent most of the day working on the art associations web site, did a few errands, cooked a good, nourishing supper, worked on my new shawl for awhile and then spent the rest of the evening on the novel. Edit, edit, edit. I’m flabbergasted at how many mistakes I am finding in a manuscript that I thought was finished.

The really delicious thing about working on this book is that most of it grew out of the years I spent in Erie, Pennsylvania when I was attending Behrend College there. I worked for a year at a diner in a tough part of town, though I didn’t know that then. Now, when I think back to that time, as I work on the book, I am filled with amazement that I even did that. I was only 19 then and knew so little about men and about life and about the dangers there are in this world. I was lucky to live in the time I did — today a nineteen year old girl wouldn’t dare.

So I think about these things as it continues to rain. Francis Cabrel is on the stereo. I just made another pot of the steamed coffee that I love. I have a busy work day ahead of me.

You are a lucky person if you have people you love, good work, memories that interest you, a Muse or two and an appreciation of loveliness — whether it is the voices of little girls singing for the rain to go away or Francis Cabrel’s smoky, French ballads — those are blessings. But I still wouldn’t mind if the rain went away.

Thanks for reading.