It’s been raining for about 80 days. I look out my window and see the gray wetness on the street, on the leaves on the trees, on my car sitting parked in the driveway. The sky is gray too. The only blue I see is in the shirt I wear most days and the cup I put my coffee in. It’s summer and soon it will be fall, but all I can do is sit here waiting for the rain to stop falling. I can’t mow, can’t walk in my garden, can’t sit on the back porch and drink wine. The sun has left and gone to some other part of the solar system.
My 11-year-old granddaughter Lulu who lives with us is tired of the rain too. She’s built herself a fortress in the rec room downstairs out of some old card tables and blankets. Days, she sits in her fortress and plays with her stuffed animals or reads to them from a Harry Potter book. Nights, she tries to sleep down there. She’s put a sleeping bag on the floor of the rec room and lies down. Lying there, she can hear the rain falling outside. A lot of nights, it keeps her awake. She pulls her stuffed animals closer and prays for it to stop. It doesn’t.
My daughter Lillian, her mom, pretends she doesn’t hear the rain. Most days and evenings, she’s on her computer, zooming with the people she works with. They talk about the work they have to do now because the rain is falling and falling. Like my daughter, they pretend they don’t hear the rain either, but I know they do. I can see it in the way they lean into their laptops for their zooms. Sometimes, my daughter or one of her co-workers will laugh about something, but I know they’re just laughing to cover up the sound of the rain falling against the windows.
My wife Linda hears the rain too. She knows it’s been falling for as long as it’s been falling, but she’s not like me. She thinks it will stop falling someday. Maybe not soon, but someday. Someday it will stop. She’s planning for that day. She sits in her easy chair with her laptop looking for vacations to the beaches in Virginia and North Carolina, cruises to the Bahamas, and weekends in New York City. She’s waiting for the day the rain stops, and she can drive up to Connecticut to bring her parents back here to visit. She knows the rain has been falling there too.
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My latest column for the Dziennik Zwiazkowy.
https://dziennikzwiazkowy.com/uncategorized/14-sierpnia-2020-roku-134-dzien-kwarantanny-august-14-2020-134th-day-in-quarantine/
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