It was raining Monday night when I let my dog outside just before bedtime.
To steal a line from the 1987 song “Rain in the Summertime” by The Alarm, I love to feel the rain on my face.
Rain in the summertime, especially at night, is not just weather. It’s a pause. A hush. A reminder that even the busiest season needs a breath. After weeks of relentless sun and the clamor of daily life, traffic jams, and the feeling of general malaise that comes from the heat, the sudden arrival of rain feels like nature tapping the brakes. The sky dims, the air cools, and for a moment, the world leans into stillness.
It wasn’t a downpour, just a gentle, steady rain that soothes. I took my glasses off and stood there for a couple of minutes, then pulled up a stool in the doorway of the shop and just listened, smelled, enjoyed.
Harry, though, doesn’t seem to share my fondness for poetry.
He quickly did his business, came into the shop, and plopped down on the floor.
He’s a 16-year-old pit bull–Boston terrier mix, which means he almost always has mixed signals going through his brain — except for feeding time and bedtime. I can relate to that – I often feel like a walking contradiction.
Most of the time, he carries himself with that quiet pit bull confidence — the kind that doesn’t need to tell you he’s the baddest man in the room, but isn’t afraid to show you when he needs to. Other times, he has that frantic Boston terrier neurosis. Every now and then, usually when he wants a treat, he has those sad, droopy eyes that dare you to tell him no.
Until recently, he still acted puppyish when it was a minute past feeding time, or whenever I would come home. But now, Harry is starting to show signs of his age — some of them disconcerting — so eventually I put the stool away and sat with him on the floor, just listening to the rain and hoping he felt the stillness in my heart.
For a few minutes, the hustle and bustle of the weekly newspaper cycle and the stresses that come with it melted away to the gentle patter of raindrops hitting the roof and the ground.
The rain reminded me that not every moment needs to be loud, not every second needs to be lived at 100 miles per hour.
When I finally decided to go in, I turned out the lights and carried Harry inside. I laid him on his blanket, crawled under mine, and settled into the stillness.
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