The Gray, Gray Rain of Home

SAN FRANCISCO--This California rain I know: the gray drizzle to downpour that continues all day long, so different from the weekly showers, the summer rains, the typhoons of Japan; the localized rains and plentiful rainbows of Maui; the "sugar rain," fine and ever-present, of Bremen, Germany; the short, frequent, violent thunderstorms of Singapore.

This rain I know: the coolness, the driving wind, the satisfying feeling of coming home to warmth and light, accompanied by that sound, the monotonous patter outside, only to be heard in winter, then banished completely from May to September.

I love the familiarity of this rain.