Noah's Ark

It's raining. Still.
Has been pretty much for the past month - on and off. Mostly on.
It's grey skies laced with even greyer clouds; so heavy if I go up on the roof where they've obscured my otherwise pristine view I can just about touch them. So thick I can actually feel them in my lungs.
The drops are soft and round and fat - obese; the way they come down so fast, following eachother so close they merge into one long coursing curtain of water. Like someone left the tap on, way, way up...there.

It rains everywhere in the world - nothing new. I've enjoyed the rain and played in mud puddles in some pretty amazing places on this planet and I've lived quite happily through eight monsoon seasons in my life (there are two every year in India...lucky ducks) but nothing, nowhere compares to Kathmandu.

The rain here is sudden, preluded only by a thundrous warning from the big grumbling stomach in the sky, perhaps a bit of lightning and then whoosh; in an instant everything is slick and shiny with water and there are puddles in my garden the size of Lake Michigan. (Not that I've ever been there actually - mental note to add it to The List.)
We're drowning here and it's absolutely lovely.

I feel about seven, maybe eight years old, when I go out in my bare feet and shorts to stomp around in the spongey grass and walk through the rivulets of rainwater that collect under the rosebushes. The neighbors in the apartments across the road from our place peer out from behind polyester curtains to wonder over my strange damp self as my hair becomes plastered to my head and my clothes are soaked through. In keeping with the spirit of my temporarily juvenile perspective I kick out a little rain dance to entertain them and go about my business enjoying the weather.

We're supposed to be taking care of the grounds since I fired the little old Nepali couple who lived in our carriage house and although darling, never did a lick of work to earn their monthly salary. So I'm supposed to be manicuring Mother Nature into submission myself, but with all this water pouring out of the sky things have been growing quite fast and I've had no inclination to clip a single branch or blade of grass in the monstrous yard. As a result it has turned into something of an English garden, The Secret Garden - wild and tumultuous with green vines and flowers sprawling and spilling out all over the place. It's perfect, I think, just the way it is.