Sometimes it begins slowly until it builds to a crescendo complete with light show and cat-hiding noises.  We’re told before it happens to count in seconds its distance between the light and the noise to prepare ourselves for its arrival.

At 10 years old we happily run outside to be in the midst of it and at 40 we duck through it as though bending keeps us drier.

In full force we refer to it as animals as in “cats and dogs,” the Irish call it “soft” for the ten to fifteen minutes it falls in their mornings or afternoons, James Taylor wished to fill all the people with it calling it “love,” other singers use it in a melancholy way better suited for a good book against a quiet light, Gene Kelly danced around a lamp post during it (and for a long time), Bacharach had it falling on our heads which one him as Oscar, one singer reminded us that it doesn’t happen in southern California, another song tells us that turn our umbrella upside down during it will make us smile (cue the 10 year old), Streisand refused to let it wreck her parade, dollars and pennies have been promised from it, in movies it is the transforming part of the film when the man stands in it and throws stones at her Brooklyn one-bedroom apartment window all prepared to apologize, God used Noah to show us who’s really in charge, it prepares the fields for all the produce we buy in groceries stores that I often wonder how so many countless U.S. stores can have so much fresh produce.

If you need a clue, it’s water.  It seems it can be whatever you wish it to be depending on your mood, what time of your life and what you hope your future holds.

I love it when I’m home and watch it.  I love it in films because I know the end is near and arguing couple will be together soon to argue for years to come in blissful marriage.  But I still duck running to my car because I’m confident that ducking saves me from at least a few drops of its wet stuff.