Building 11 “Rain on My Skin”

“I can feel the rain dancing on the surface of the water. I want to be there, laying with my face facing the bright rain clogged sky and feel the meditation that is the fall of rain on your skin. I want to suspend myself in water, murky and without a discernible depths, and simply let any worry about what lies beneath fall to the side.

It is a worry for another moment.

Something brushing against my leg is happening to someone else.

I can hear the rain now, falling over the sound of the air conditioner trying to render the interior of the house as dry as a wasteland, instead of falling to the elements. But I can hear the rain, in all its glory, the sound of rushing water in gutters mingling with the sound of rain colliding with the water in the pond less then fifty feet from my door.

It would be so easy to step into the water. I like to imagine it as being a thing with incalculable depths, but in reality the water wouldn't even come up to my waist. It is deep enough, and I can feel the sensation if I close my eyes; the sensation of wading into the water, the green depths gripping into my skirt, drawing up my thigh like it was trying to subsume me.

The water is deep; deep enough to hide all manner of things inside of it. The water is dark, and that is the key. So long as water is dirty and green, there is no real way to know what lies underneath the surface.

I wish to wade out, and settle in, laying on my back and welcoming the sensation of oily feeling water on my skin, the feel of the seaweed and grasses tickling my legs and back.

It is just the grass that would tickle my legs and back, as far as I can tell. My vision is limited, as I said before, and the water is dark and green and cloudy. There is no real way that I would be able to notice and escape anything in there before it was too late.

The water is probably the most alien thing we can encounter, perhaps even more than outer space. We know so much about space, the realities of it feeling almost pedestrian, like getting milk or walking the dog. It isn't that space is something ordinary people encounter, but that isn't what makes it normal.

It is understanding, and the water is something we don't understand.

Space is not a place teaming with life well suited to it. Life that understands it.

In water, life is the norm, and yet that is not normal to us, because we don't understand water. We can't imagine what it would really feel like to have gills, gliding through the water in search of prey that is ill equipped for the things that truly consider the place to be home, to be normal.

I can feel the rain dancing on the surface of the water, and the feel of the water, pulling up and seeping into my clothes. There is something tickling my legs and back, and I have given up trying to understand or imagine what it is.

Something is nibbling on my toes, and that is okay.

I wanted the water, and the water wanted me. There is something in the water, something that is hidden from view, immovable and undetectable until something peeks its interest.

I feel the rain on the water and on my face.

I feel the water on my face, as the bright sky falls away from me like falling into a deeper slumber.

I have no gills.

I cannot breathe.”

It seems that this is going to be the last of the rain for a little while, the temperature supposedly rising up for the remainder the the month.

I wanted to share more this week, but I simply don't have it in me. I can't explain it well, but I just feel fatigued and worn out. I feel bad for it, because I have always made a point to try and reach out to you and let you know how I am doing, but this week I don't have anything.

I don't know why I feel this way.