Noticing today how rain in the distance appears so differently than I might have assumed if I thought about it. Rain up close – right above you, dampening or soaking you, tangible and near and audible – is readily discernible: countless drops, coordinated but separate. Rain can toy with you in breaths and waves, different moments affecting you uniquely as the wind picks up or a car drives by or its intensity ebbs or flows.
But rain in the distance is entirely different. It is not only a singular mass – really just a color gradient between clouds and horizon – it is edgeless, formless, and wispy. Not at all what I’d expect rain to look like after having experienced it proximally.
It seems there’s some sort of life principle hiding here. I think of fear; of how acute fear can feel pummeling, and distant fear can remain elusive and nebulous. I think of hurt; I think of suffering; I think of memory. Maybe rain in the distance demonstrates a quality true of many elements on life’s periodic table. That as something recedes into the past or future, it takes on a new appearance and seemingly a new nature, even though if one were to approach it again they’d still find it distinct, poignant, or even overwhelming.
I don’t know if there’s any further truism I can milk from these musings. But rain in the distance will likely conjure more for me now than it did in the past.
-LS
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