I'm Going to Go to Brooklyn to Sit on the Stoop in the Summer Rain

Rain is the best part of life. Hands down.

I started cataloging the various types of rain as a youngster. I was interested in the science of weather and doing little science projects like hydrometers made of milk cartons, but I was also interested in the poetical nomenclature of rain. This probably started somewhere in my obsession with Alaska and the weather conditions there. I read that the native peoples in Alyeska had an abundance of terms for types of snowfall. I couldn't find any such thing for rain.

I do remember Tantric Rain (as in the panic of enlightenment) and Tic Tac Rain (as in the high velocity, very fine pellets of rain on a windshield), but the others escape me now. I have an illustrated poster of my findings in deep storage: in an old suitcase on a high shelf in the laundry room, on the third floor.

Whenever I love a place and visit, I hope I get to see it in the rain. Right now, I think Brooklyn in the rain would be nice. I'm not sure why. It has just occurred to me in the last few days. I think a nice soaking summer Brooklyn rain sounds pretty good.

My dad used to leave vehicles in various places. One place was at my grandmother's where mom and I would stay from time to time when he was traveling for work. No one drove the cars but him. Mom didn't like to drive and none of the rest of us liked her to either. I would hide in the backseat and beg her to stop. I can't remember what others did to save themselves. The most driving I ever saw her do was to test out the car she changed the spark plugs on and to move the car around the block to keep it from being towed when Dad was passed out from bourbon and PTSD. Those were a Ford station wagon of some late 50's sort and a Ford Galaxy that was pledged to be mine on my 16th birthday.

When I was at my grandmother's I would ask to sit in his car--a navy blue Studebaker with suicide doors--when it rained. I loved being surrounded by the room, completely encapsulated and invisible to the world. The sound was loud and calming. It was the type of rain defined by my father's car, permission to go aboard and total sound immersion.

Photo: A Particular Type of Rain 11, Marie Monroe