Rain

It rained last night. It started as just a sprinkle at around 11pm, just when I had crawled into bed. As soon as I heard the first few random drops, I rolled over onto my back and laid quietly, a smile crossing my face, and listened. I had noticed crickets chirping earlier in the evening. It was the first time that I had heard them so loud, a nice sign of warming weather. So as the rain began, I listened to see whether I could still hear them in the background. But after just a few minutes, the storm intensified and drowned out all the other sounds.

My tent began filling with white noise. The rain fly is a thick poly tarp and it resonates at a low frequency when struck by raindrops. As the rain fell harder, the noise in the tent increased until the whole tarp buzzed with a low-pitched drone.

Soon, I was fast asleep. I awoke at 7am to my cell phone alarm. The rain was still going strong so I snoozed. And snoozed again. When I finally decided to get up, I remembered that I was out of water, but instead of walking to the water supply, I decided to place a pot outside along the eaves of the rain fly to catch some rain water for my bath. There was just enough potable water left in my container for a pot of coffee, so I made one and put it on the stove.

As my bathing pot filled with rainwater, and my coffee pot began to perk, I looked out onto the path to my home. It had become a little river, with large section being overtaken by runoff that was making its way to the creek just below my tent. I gazed for awhile longer until I started to smell the coffee. By then, my bathing pot was full so I brought it inside and put it on the stove to warm. Surprisingly, this was the first time that I'd collected rainwater that way, but it won't be the last. The rainwater was noticeably softer than the well water that I usually bathe in, plus I didn't have to walk through the rain to fetch it.

It's early afternoon now and the rain has stopped. The sky is starting to lighten and soon the sun will be out again. My path will be a muddy mess for a few days, and now that we're getting closer to Spring, it will be like that more and more often. But my nights will be good, and I'll sleep well as those Spring showers make their way to Virginia, and my rain fly.