Wow, the first true rain of the year. This is always a favorite of mine, and brings back with it an entire flood of memories. As a little kid, I use to run with my younger brother outside and we would play in the puddles that would form in the road of our little cul-de-sac. We didn’t care what the temperature was, or how hard it was coming down. It was rain and we were happy to be in it! I remember one spring, the thunder was rattling the windows in our little "gingerbread house." Ryan and I bolted upright, booked it upstairs, and ran into the door. Our mother had locked it in anticipation of our excitement. At the sound of our crash, and the screams to “unlock the door Jess” (Ryan wasn’t yet big enough to flip the lock on our glass door) our mother came up behind us and scared the pee out of Ryan. She had gotten us both rain coats. New, shiny, and plastic with umbrella’s to match! We were beside ourselves with excitement! Bountiful came alive for us when it would rain; colors would deepen, and our backyard turned into a wet jungled mass of fruit trees, ivy, pine trees, and wet trampoline. The entire neighborhood went quiet and we could run from our elementary school down to Bird World and never have to look twice as we raced down the middle of 3600 South...
The scent of the rain is drifting in through the drive-thru drawer here at Deseret First Credit Union and all I can think about is the day I wrote ‘Long Time Memories’ and finally finished the transitioning stanza in ‘Yellow Daisies.’ I was sitting in the middle of my Great Grandpa Browns’ wheat fields in Idaho. It was raining, and I was so tired of being with those infuriating people. I ran as far as I could push into the golden field and just started crying. I had been smart enough to bring along my sketch pad, and my notebook. I pushed down some of the wheat stalks so I wouldn’t get my shorts all muddy when I sat down. I crossed my legs and just watched the drops fall into a small puddle forming in the mud beneath my knees. I watched my reflection ripple, and distort itself and lost all sense of what was around me as I wrote and sketched for hours. The smell was over-powering, soothing, and comforting. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but I found myself waking up alone and in the dark. Pulling myself up, I fumbled my way down to the dirt road. I was soaked through, and freezing, but content. How I slept through an entire night, outside, during a thunderstorm, in the middle of a wheat field and managed to go un-noticed and by my father and his family… I still don' know. The poem ‘Long Time Memories’ has been a blue ribbon winner, and was my entry into The Young Poets of America at the age of 13. ‘Yellow Daisies’ has yet to leave my water stained notebook, and make it into the public…
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