Autumn

It finally started raining here (as of Saturday night). Worms on the sidewalk, mud everywhere, and that sweet, sleepy sound of water against pavement, roof tiles, windows. Absolutely hypnotizing. Hardly anyone could stay awake in class this morning, we just gazed (in a sort of slack-jawed way) out the windows at the rain and the low masses of steel-grey clouds that obscure the mountains and skim the ground. Autumnal weather can't be beat, even if autumn in the depths of Southern California is a sad excuse for a real autumn (yes, that's right, I'm saying autumn is truly found only in New England). It makes me want to snuggle up on a couch with hot apple cider, an enveloping blanket, good music and knit. I'm not sure what that says about me.


Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow