Before our walk we gaze out at the backyard, where the cold rain continues and the grass appears to have grown a full inch overnight. As sometimes happens between couples who have been together for a long time, M and I simultaneously remember a Ray Bradbury story about a planet where it has been raining for the last seven years and the children who have never seen the sun: “All Summer in a Day.”
Colorado natives are not accustomed to multiple days of steady rain, and that’s what we’ve had. Sunday morning we decide to break out the ponchos and risk our lives to stroll along the Boulder Creek bike patch in the epicenter of the flood plain. We park our car on one of the upper levels in the nearby parking garage “just in case,” and ponder whether we would hear the rush of the hundred-year-flood in enough time to climb to safety above the creek path.
Along the wider than usual creek, the water rushes by. Two kayakers carry their gear past us on the way up to their usual launching point. “You’re really going to try it today?” M asks in amazement, and they chuckle nervously. The water is high, but not as high as we’ve sometimes seen it. The underpasses are partially dry and still walkable. The rain lightens after awhile, then pounds down heavily, then lets up again, a pattern that repeats again and again. The clouds throw a heavy cloak over the Flatirons and the rare deep green of the foothills. At Eben Fine Park a group of gung ho runners soldiers ahead with their sprints and stretches and then heads up the creek trail, their coach running effortlessly alongside them uttering words of encouragement. 
Chief Niwot sits, stoic as always under the downpour, and the birds seem to thrive; the excess water does flush the worms out of their hidey holes. It is cold for June, around forty degrees. Last night the steam rose up from our outdoor hot tub and the rain drops made circular patterns on the surface of the water encouraging meditation on the present moment.
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