The Rain is Full of Ghosts

My attention walk yesterday happened in the rain. I felt very alone. I didn't even see a crow. The rain droplets gathered on my lenses and obscured my vision. My ears only heard the sound of rain falling on the hood insulating me from wetness, a jacket necessitated by the cold temperature. What I observed about my surroundings is that the wetness turns the woody brush a deep brown, almost black. The sand compacts and makes for easier walking in the arroyos. The leaves and grasses, their winter beige tones, are slightly greened to that of silver sage or a Russian Olive. All this will fade when the rain stops and the land dries again, but beautiful these stark, vibrant tones are.

My other observation: I was uncomfortable and melancholy. My moods are tied with the weather, to a fault and to my detriment often. Sunshine and snow, the glories of autumn, these elevate my spirit. Spring, clouds, and rain? Deep depression and sadness set in. The weather cannot always be fair, the skies blue, the precipitation bright, but this rationality does little to temper what I feel, though I try. I fear these dark moods, grow anxious with worry as to whether they will pass.

When I returned from my walk I sought refuge in literature and happened upon this sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The weather and season of life made of my mind fertile ground. It's titled, "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why":

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me

A little while, that in me sings no more.

"the rain / Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh / Upon the glass and listen for reply" -- in this image and that of the lonely tree, the summer once singing but singing no more, the feelings I was having found expression. I wasn't thinking about loves or youthfulness lost or even thinking about aging and death, but the poem helped me manage the feelings the rain engendered in me on that walk, especially the loneliness, finding no creatures active, no sun for companion. And comfort too that another person has felt these things, reckons with ghosts, mourns, and knows loneliness. Not finding comfort externally, one turns inward and panic arises when there too one finds spirit mirroring nature, the internal and external one and the same, so I could not comfort myself with my inner resources. Thank goodness for literature, my constant companion come rain or shine, green or gray.