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It’s been raining all night, a steady soothing rain that forced me to abandon all productivity and curl up on my bed with an entertaining book. Got to work, finally, by 11pm, finished by 1:00am, the rain still slooshing, shushing down. Realized when I walked out to my car to get my teaching bag that I really didn’t want to go back inside. I did, and finished my work, but left my raincoat on while I did so, and when I got up to go to bed, somehow I went outside instead and wandered up my street a little.

Both sides of the street I live on now are more or less solid greenery. A few houses are set back behind green yards. Trees arc overhead, so I hear the rain quite well but don’t feel it so much. The road’s deserted–I peer down it and see the intermittent stripes of yellow streetlight splashing down onto the gleaming black road. The air smells of clean greenness and I feel a little bit naughty for being up so late when I have to get up so early, but the night is warm and the rain is wet and for the first time in weeks–months?–I feel relaxed, simple, clear. It is raining.

One car passes. I hear the waily, latinish music drifting from its open window. Behind me, I hear it stop, reverse. Oh dear. Still feeling calm, but grateful that I’m within sight of my house. Wondering what this person will say to me. A youngish man leans out of his window and says with a slight accent: “You okay?”

Relief. I say, “Yes, just taking a walk!” He doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t understand, or doesn’t hear, and says again, “You okay?”

I must have looked kinda funny and lonely, my hair disheveled from being taken out of a ponytail, my bulky long raincoat unbuttoned, arms wrapped around myself to keep it closed, alone on a dark street, wandering slowly, pensively, aimlessly.

I speak more definitively. “Yes.” He looks at me doubtfully. I say “I live here. I’m just taking a walk. Thank you for asking.” He nods, finally, and drives away, looking at me in the mirror. I go back inside. I am okay.

I’m typing this in my new office–only the second blog post from the new house! And I’ve left the door to the office balcony open so I can keep hearing the rain and feeling the cool air shift, drift through, making goosebumps on my de-coated arms and rustling the paper on my desk. Oh this world. I may as well be 12 years old again, outside in the redwoods in the rain at night. So uncomplicated. Nothing has changed.