Rainy BoulderWalk

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. 

Yes, it’s a cold rain for June—but we remember the drought days and watering our thirsty flowers with gray water from the bathtub, and are grateful for life and rainfall, knowing as we do the strong connection between the two.

The Greening of Boulder

Rain has been more plentiful than usual this May in Boulder and I’m reveling in the sight of unusually lush green foothills and trails.

We walk from South Boulder up to Chautauqua, down to Pearl Street for a writing session at Bookend Cafe, then home in the pouring rain, and we’re happy. Our walk is in a parallel universe with the massive 10K Bolder Boulder footrace also occurring in town today but we walk alongside many of those who've completed the race as we make our way home in the downpour.

It was also May when we first arrived in Boulder in 1977, with every belonging we had packed in a tan square back VW (two guitars, a tent and cook stove, our clothes, and a remarkable number of books). For the first few nights we pitched out tent along the creek at the Wagon Wheel Campground in Four Mile Canyon outside town.

That year the weather was mild and very dry. Colorado’s arid climate and the muted sage green and gray of the Flatirons were a radical change from the emerald green forests of maple, sycamore and oak in southern Indiana. We were luckier than we knew, since May in Boulder can be quite rainy; some years, late season snowstorms cruelly weigh down and break the flowering fruit tree branches. It is only after many years here, some during severe drought, that we fully appreciate the precious rain when it comes. So it’s been raining all Memorial Day weekend in Boulder and I’ve been falling into grateful sleep each night to the steady, gentle patter on our roof.

Up in Chautauqua the sage was abundant--we each picked and crushed a leaf; the delicious scent filled me with peace and joy. When it’s been raining this long it seems as though all the green plants come out of hibernation and suddenly it looks a lot like Ireland without quite so many pubs.

Also in Chautauqua Park is a small circular flower garden with four pebbly paths leading up to an oblong sign that proclaims, in multiple languages: May Peace Prevail on Earth. As I’m reading the sign and saying my own little prayer, a woman drives by, leans out the window with a smile and calls out “Peace for all the world!” I do feel peace in my souI right here, right now in Boulder.

Rain

It's been raining more than usual here in Colorado, a very welcome event. The rain, and the time of year, remind me of a song by Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows called Omaha. It's from their 1993 album “August and Everything After” that always makes me think of my brother Paul, who told me once that it was one of his very favorite tunes. As usual, it is the lyrics that draw me most to a song I love.

It starts out with a verse about an old man—tearing him down, rolling a new leaf over. “The old man treading around in the gathering rain,” is perhaps somebody who thinks he is so right that he walks on water. This makes me think about my brother's relationship with my dad. They loved each other, and each could never be what the other needed.

Then the chorus comes in for the first time.

“Omaha, somewhere in middle America

Get right to the heart of matters

It's the heart that matters more

I think you better turn your ticket in

And get your money back at the door”

My brother and I grew up with our family in middle America – southern Indiana to be exact. The song makes me think of Indiana’s best seasons--the rain, the earth, the green fields.

The next verse is about life change or the hope for change —“rolling a new life over.” In this verse the old man is “threading his toes through a bucket of rain.” My father was a master gardener. Dad would often garden in the rain, or simply stand outside during a rainfall to revel in the water coming for the garden or to admire the lightning show. We all tried to help him with the garden, although his standards were so high that it was hard to please him. Even weeding and watering have a right way and a wrong way, could be judged insufficient, you see. It could feel like he was walking all over you. He didn’t mean to, but he did.

For Paul, I can imagine there was always the hope of ultimately pleasing him, somehow or another. But Dad was walking on water, and Paul was underwater.

In the third verse, there is a “young man rolling around in the earth and rain” in order to “turn a new girl over.” Paul had a hard time with relationships, in his own family and with girls. In the end, he was never really able to find a long term relationship for many reasons, mostly due to his own choices and because he struggled with mental illness and addictions. He was very lonely, I think. (To “get right to the heart of the matter – it’s the heart that matters most.”)

In the end, perhaps we all want to turn our tickets in and get our money back at the door. We all have our hearts broken. This song has heart – listen to it when you get a chance. You'll be glad you did.