WORDS FOR A RAINY DAY
One of the best parts of summer coming to a close is the rain. Cutting through the heat, the sunny sky takes a pause, implying for the world to follow suit. Usually, you can be found squinting at the dimness, finding a window, listening to the rain fall. These are the days that you turn to an exhaustive TBR (To Be Read) pile, debating a book to cosy up with. Maybe something new or a familiar favourite, like issue 48. Here, there are words and images to enter, stay, and emerge through the weather with.
Baba’s Idea of Sexy by Eleni Zaptses
Maybe the storm begins soft and slow. Droplets sounding spaced apart, leaving you unsure of your own senses. Is it really raining? But then you hear it, the steady pitter-patter, and look fondly. Soft rain falls familiar. It is reminiscent, do you remember watching the rain from other windows? You turn a story of family, care, and discovery. Returning to yourself with the help of those that love you. The connection between Marina and her grandmother is unrelenting, love from the warmest place.
Consider the Dove a Bird of Prey by Julie Triganne
The birds don’t mind the rain, have you noticed? Often, they fall silent to make room for the rain. Might listen to the splash, or wet their wings. If you were a bird, you would whistle when the clouds begin to part. Already, you may have that intuition. Follow it down the path of Trigane’s imaginings. Emerge as who you say you are.
When it starts to come down harder, few bodies pass by across the street. This is the time for settling in. The chances of sudden sun are slim when the wind picks up. You’re after a journey, a character study, a morality tale. Freeman steps in, exploring the deepest moments of insecurity tethered around parental responsibility. Even, human responsibility. And, turning to a child to tell the difference.
You contemplate the rain, and maybe a few life decisions. Weather has that power, the psychological manipulation of ambiance. Remember that thing your mom said that one time? Does your high school bully have way more money than you? Is your first partner is announcing their engagement on Instagram? From the comfort of your warm home, take a breath. The rain continues, and so do you. It is difficult when other people have different expectations of you, but they’re listening to the same rhythms you are.
If the Villain Is Absence by grace (ge) gilbert
When was the last time you ran into the rain? There is a lot more to think about than do, or it just feels that way from inside. Maybe now is the time where you’d open the door, running out in bare feet. Feeling the wet drop hit your skin, one after the other. Clothes dry in time, and you’ll remember the feeling. As if, you’re the only person alive. There is a difference between the inside and the outside.
Mom Wrecker by Michaela Di Cesare
It’s as though someone lifted the curtains, only, on the sky. You realize the sounds of conversation, swerving bikes, and bugs are back. There is a part of you that isn’t ready, that turns towards another story. Di Cesare entangles you in a complexity of intimate life immediately. From the therapist’s office to the hospital room, you reckon with the failings of yourself and your own family from the distance of the page. Staying, for another minute, in the rich inner world of the characters before you.
Even when the storm is over, the ground is still wet. Water lingers like language, running through the streets. Like history, like memory. There, and then, metabolised into the body. Kept under the skin, dry on the surface. Lived and embodied, passed down and between. After the rain we find each other again, set the page down for a minute and keep it. Living as another form of poetry.