Summer Rain

So in California when it "looks like rain", it rarely does. Unless you're in the Rainy Season months, the thick marine layer near the coast is known as May Gray or June Gloom, and burns off in the afternoon by the ever present California sun.

In New York when it "looks like rain"...it does!

I got caught in a downpour tonight, when it started sprinkling in Chelsea but was pouring when I came up from the subway in Brooklyn Heights.

Unfortunately (perhaps because I'm now living in the 'country') there weren't any handy 'umbrella entrepreneurs' on every street corner. These enterprising businesses pop up miraculously in Manhattan during every rainstorm, selling their cheap black umbrellas for $5 each.

So I made my way home, rain pouring down, looking much less like Catherine Deneuve's "Geneviéve"

Or "Holly Golightly"

Than "drowned rat"!

However, as a testament to the sweet neighborly Sesame Street quality of Brooklyn Heights, or perhaps its that romantic Edith Warton "Age of Innocence" feel, a Hicks Street stroller spied me and crossed the street to gallantly walk me home under his umbrella.

(Say what you will about Brooklyn, this has never happened to me in Manhattan before).

Once home, I breathed in the smell of rain and watched the storm over the harbor. I think I even heard the distant clap of thunder. It made me think of summer storms growing up in Michigan, especially near a lake -- dark thunder clouds massing, sheets of rain and forks of lightening illuminating the night sky.

Then the quiet and calm and freshness in the air the next morning, after the storm has passed.