I was reading in bed last evening, reading What is Paleolithic Art by the wonderful Jean Clottes in preparation for a trip to the Côa Valley in early November, when I heard the first drops of rain on our blue metal roof. Maybe in winter I tire of the sound. It can be endless, monotonous. But now? After a very dry summer? It was like hearing the opening bars of music I have been looking forward to for weeks. I think of John Luther Adams, whose compositions take us so profoundly into the heart of the natural world around us: deserts, rivers, oceans (one of my favourite pieces of music is his Become Ocean), and yes, even rain.
All night it rained. The water barrels are overflowing, the trees hold that incandescent light, washed of dust and summer heat. When I woke, I went to the living room window and looked out at the deck where we’ve eaten so many dinners since May. The other day we picked the grapes (ahead of the bear who’s been lurking around) and I stood on the ladder, my head in the vines, and I thought how dry everything was. When I looked out, I saw the rain wash away the shadows of the long summer meals, two tables pushed together and laid with French cloths, our Italian plates, unmatched silver, wine glasses polished in anticipation of the best wine, children’s voices asking for another Yorkshire pudding (I know! In summer! But somehow the celebratory meal when we’re all together is prime rib…).
I went down for my swim a little later than usual, the wet sand busy with tracks: ducks, crows, the heart-shaped prints of deer. In the rain, everything was muffled. I had to close my eyes swimming on my back because the raindrops stung and when I opened them, I was far out in the lake. Two people came down to the beach with umbrellas and I heard one say to the other, “There’s someone swimming out there!” And it was me, the only human among the cutthroat, the stickleback, the crayfish, the rainbow.
When I returned from my swim, John made a fire in the woodstove, balsam fir and some bark. The kitchen is a good place to be. There are Merton Beauty apples to be made into pies and baskets of tomatoes waiting to be slow-roasted, with olive oil and garlic. And after that, I have lengths of indigo and rose-madder dyed linen to make into…something. All summer my hands have been waiting for time by the fire to sew, to think, to follow a length of thread as it inscribes its route on fabric. I was the one far out in the lake, blind to the way back.
Flocks and herds of things wild glisten
Faintly. Then the scent of musk opens across
Half a mountain — and lingers on past noon.
Note: the lines are Tu Fu’s, translated by David Hinton.
...Theresa Kishkan 
That covered deck has me drooling. Lucky you.
All summer it’s a haven — cool and green, tree frogs in the vines. Then late September the leaves fall and the late light comes through. I do feel lucky! My husband’s mother’s wisteria and a green grape.