April Showers (just in time for May!)

We had our first rain last night, after what felt like weeks and weeks of blue sky and sunshine. And it was a satisfying downpour, replete with thunder and lightning and power surges - reminding me of the summer storms of my youth, when the lights would go out and we would sit around eating popcorn and telling ghost stories.

But the lights stayed on last night, and so there were no ghost stories, and no popcorn. Instead, I watched the family across the street as they watched the rain from their 6th floor garret window: a mother and father and two small children squeezed into a tiny metal frame, like a family huddling together for a photograph. One of the children dropped a toy onto the gutter below and the father spent the next 10 minutes fishing for it with a broom handle. I couldn't help but get caught up in the suspense - would he manage to hook the toy and bring it back up to safety? The whole family leaned out and cheered him on. But then they saw me watching them, and I sank back into my apartment and closed the curtains - away from their world and back to my own.