At first the rain was soothing, as rain this time of year is rare. It hit the pavement causing glossy slicks which reflected the street lights just so. Cars whooshed through puddles while feet tip-toed around them, and the sand and salt of the previous cold weeks slowly washed away. Rain anytime is welcome to me because it means a free car wash. Sometimes I think of taking a bucket of suds and a rag to scrub my car when it rains, then to just let the clouds do the rest of the work, but I never do. I guess as much as I like to see things fresh again, to see things sparkle and take on the resemblance of what they were when they were new, doesn't mean as much to me as I must think it does or else I would have done it by now.
But I look at the rain when it should be snow, and I wonder what'll happen later when the temperature drops once again. This city, this world, this place will become a slippery mess. Unsafe and dangerous and altogether not unlike one giant ice rink. Then I worry about it all, these things that I cannot control. I fret and furrow my brow. I close my eyes and try to project myself into the future two months from now when I will be driving with the windows down, the sun beating on my cheek, and the wind rushing by blowing my hair into my eyes. When it's nice outside, somehow this compulsion to be the master of my fate subsides a little bit. Perhaps it actually subsides a lot.
As the clock ticks away the mercury falls, and of course the rain turns to sleet which then turns to this odd substance not unlike hail, but it isn't hail at all; it's crisp like little white frozen corn flakes that merrily land on the hood of my car, bounce, and jump like cheerful miniature creatures from the heavens. They litter the streets and sidewalks, coating everything in crunchy, crinkly bits. They collect in the corners of the windshield. They multiply. They don't take no for an answer.
But they change almost as quickly as they began... they're like tiny cocoons full of delicate moths, descending slower, weaving in an out of each other, twirling down instead of the dance, as they become flakes of snow. White, lovely, moths of snow, fluttering all around. And I see them there, and I smile at them, because there really isn't anything else you can do. The moths keep billowing out of the clouds, everywhere, landing on your eyelashes and on your fingertips, and getting caught in the crevices of everything.
I watch the invading paratroopers fall, sailing on the wind, landing in waves and wafts and tufts. Everything is lovely again in only a few minutes. The ugly brown is now white. The naked trees are wearing soft sweaters. The leftover christmas lights have fluffy alabaster hats on now. This time I do go out in it, not with a bucket of suds, but just me in my coat and scarf so I can lay in it. And I do lay in it. I let my head get damp and cold immersed in the moths. I try to look up at them as they fall, only to end up flinching whenever they land on my face. Sometimes to be a part of something so beautiful you have to do things that are not logical at all, and that's ok because not everything worthwhile should be easy or comfortable. Sometimes it makes no difference who knows it, or why, because you were there and you did it and you are all the better for it anyway. That's all that matters.
I laid amongst the moths.
I did.
