It rained today.  I woke up and the drops were throwing themselves in sheathes against my window.  All of a sudden I realized there was nothing for me to do this day.  I had no payments to make, floors to sweep, papers to grade.  Even the chores that some of us create for ourselves, those personal chores built on our prerogative and self-possession, were all neatly done or set aside.  How was this?  Was I truly unencumbered today?  Each book I had aimed to read was finished, each kindred loved-one spoken to.  The inner-most feelings that could so easily consume a day like today were at ease.  Perhaps I dreamed for them last night?  I could not recall, and my curiosity did not command me to.  On this day, today, I stayed in, and time was on my side.

                Every so often a passer-by outside my window, or a car driving just below the speed limit let me know that I was not alone.  On this day, I was part of a whole community of people who enjoyed the rain’s reprieve.  I heard muttered words that sounded as pleasant as any sound, and tires gently spraying, spritzing water across the avenue.  Through I read, and cleaned—not out of necessity.  These things seamlessly became the world as I did them.  There was no sieve between what I wanted and what I willed to be.  Today, it was as if the day filled itself with me.

                Have you ever experience the world as so small, so gloriously small, that its murmurs you could hear?  On this day, I could hear, and I understood, so I listened.  It told me intimate secrets about heartbreaks and hopes I think I always knew it must have felt and dreamed.  Today the world told me things I already knew about it.   Today I felt its childlike fear of my judgment, a judgment that was never there, and I helped it through its innocence like any guardian of any creature vulnerable and sweet.