Like many people, when it rains I feel a certain longing. On some occasions I have settled into a chair with a book and perhaps a cup of tea of coffee, but while there is certainly pleasure in that, it never feels like enough. On too few occasions I have watched the rain through a window, lover at my side, speaking together softly of hopes and dreams.

None of these, though, seem to quell the yearning some something just beyond my reach. The rolling peal of the thunder, the crack and flash of the lightning, the white noise of the raindrops tumbling through the palms outside — these all ignite in my heart a primal desire to strip away the suffocating layers of civilization, cleanse my world of stress and disappointment, walk away from everything — my job, my house, my life — and just be.

The moment, though, never lasts long enough, and when the thunder recedes and the rain slows to scattered drops, all I am left with is the melancholy emptiness.