Late August in the garden.


The end of a long hot summer. Watering thirsty plants with their withered leaves and wilted stems. Trees dropping leaves, little golden flutters landing at my feet. It is as if everything around me is pausing to take a breath. A moment to reflect. To sit in my adirondack chair, put my feet up and hear the school bus on the corner, picking up precious cargo carrying new backpacks and unopened boxes of crayons.


One season ends and a new season peeks around the corner.


Still. Here in my yard, it is still.


The long Labor Day weekend looms large. Summer lingers in wisps of skittish clouds scattered across the sky. But nightfall has begun to creep in sooner with each day, and I know that there is work yet to be done. There is a touch of sadness in the air, of spent blossoms and the lock on the neighborhood pool clanking shut.


Another season comes to a close.


For each of us, a seasonal change serves as a reminder that some of our dreams may never come true. That some dreams will forever be out of reach, truly impossible to achieve and piling up like little golden wishes around our feet.


Throughout my life, from a very early age, I had a dream, a wish, a hope, to stand on a stage in a large theater in front of an even larger audience and to sing my heart out. To have the kind of voice that catches people off guard, silences the whispers and calms shuffling feet. I wanted to garner complete and utter attention.


I wanted to sing from a place inside me where the music rose gradually, filling me completely, until there was nothing I could do except to sing purely to the final note. I rehearsed in my head. I practiced in those tender moments between eyes closed and sleep.

I sat down to write. Knew exactly what I needed to say. Put the words down on the page. A simple message this week. A simple expression of exasperation born of endless weeks of searing heat and months of drought. I thought, perhaps, if I said what so many of you are thinking, just like me, maybe, maybe, maybe with all our wishing might, with all our fervent hope we...could...do ...a rain dance together.


So I wrote:


I miss the rain.


I miss the raindrops splashing outside my window.


I miss shaking the damp off my umbrella.


I miss brushing up against the bushes in the yard, when they drip drop a tiny shower on my sleeve.


I miss puddles.


I miss the mist on my face.


I miss the mud on the bottom of my boots.


I miss using words like wet and soaked and drenched, and the sound of swish swish swish my windshield wipers make.


I miss the way the leaves turn their faces skyward in anticipation of an approaching storm.


I miss the smell of wet grass and the air washed clean of soot.


I miss the rinsing cleansing generosity of falling rain.


I hold up my empty glass.


Thirsting for a drink.


I close my eyes really really tight and offer up a humble request.


Please.


Please.


Please.


Make it rain.


For all the folks down here baking in the heat and the sun.


For all the people in need of a ride in the wash cycle.


For all the critters roaming dried up creek beds.


For all the trees shrugging off leaves like an overcoat.


For all the blooms that have lost their blush.


For all those who garden, reap and sow.


Please.


Please.


Please.


Make it rain. 



This is where the goose bumps come in.


I put a period after the word rain.


A clap of thunder.


A bolt of lightning.


My computer screen went black.


Honest.


Outside the wind howled and the sky opened up.


Rain.


Rain.


Rain.


The  temperature dropped twenty degrees.


Branches swayed,


There were puddles.


Foot-stomping-through puddles.


Ten minutes.


Over in ten minutes.


The final meteorological measurement.


Less than a quarter of an inch.


Of rain.



ME?


I was wearing goose bumps twice that size.


Sheesh.


Holy cow.


Really?


No way.


It can't be that easy can it?


To make a wish and have it come true?


To ask for a favor and then to receive?


Maybe it was one of those...


In the right place at the right time scenarios.


I thought about scrapping the blog all together, until this sneaky little thought crossed my mind.


Good intentions.


I had truly good intentions.


So I'm going out on a limb here...


For all of you that missed out, or need a bit more than a thimbleful of relief...


I realize I am being greedy, but I mean it in a truly selfless way...maybe, just maybe, if we all...play the old game of telephone...whisper from one to another...the same words...


Please


Please


Please


Make it rain...


We might just give each other goose bumps.





For you doubters out there...you don't have to believe...but keep a bucket handy...