Raining Down

This is way too long to be anything near my Williams supplement essay (nor is it going to be anything near what my final essay will look like in terms of subject, because this is not really reality), but it is a start. I have not (extensively) proofread this, and there definitely will be mistakes. This is merely my exploratory take on the subject, because exploratory works are all the rage lately.

. . .

My fingers are millimeters away from the rain.

I can feel their coolness on the tips of my fingers, feel them drip past my skin, into my bones. A trickling sensation. Spatter-spatter-splot. I hear the drumming of the raindrops and hear them against my skin. Goodness rain.

Outside, the grass is a saturated green. Long, wispy strands reaching out to a solemn grey sky. “Do you know the time?” The grass asks. “Five-after-two,” the sky replies.

The grass nods. Happy. The rain splashes on. They are singing some tune, a drum affair, with a scattering of xylophone notes and the occasional flute. I trace the rain as they dance across the sky, their footsteps light. A free-style salsa in a funeral. With only harmony and no melody, or only rhythm without harmony.

I reach out, trying to bridge the last few millimeters, and everything turns mute. The rain is merely a humming now. The green washed with silvery-grey. The cold, the wind, it is all gone, except for the vents blowing cold air into my elbows.

It is ten-after-two, or fifteen-after-two. I do not know—I cannot know unless I turn the key in the ignition, and if I do that then I will lose the quiet. And as I think that, I know I have already lost it. I am back where I was. In a Ford Taurus station-wagon at some service area on Interstate 90. Behind the windshield, overlooking the rain, the grass, and the cars zooming past, ghosts of what they are.

I do not know how I had missed the cars before. They are there, in the parking lot, blues and reds and blacks. People running by under umbrellas, under coats, under backpacks slung over their heads. And I do not know how I had missed the people. They are going somewhere, with their iced coffees and Happy Meals and cigarettes soaked through the box but only damp inside. They are turning keys. Lights. Motors. Plates from Tennessee and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Indiana. The rare one from New Hampshire. The one from Florida that is everywhere. The bright red California—no, that is a Massachusetts.

I sit in my car, my feet cold from the rain, my arms cold from the air conditioning. The key is in my hand, waiting to settle. It is at least fifteen-after-two now. I should be leaving. It is late.

The grass shouts, “You do not belong here.” The sky agrees. “You have places to be. Things to see. People to meet.” Their voices are muted. Muffled screaming.

I know. I know.

I am on the crossroads. I came from a past of wandering, of staking out new territories and discovering new adventures. Years of searching and floating, fleeting “Hi how are you?” and “Sorry I have to go.” And now I am driving. I am in control of the steering wheel, with twenty bottles of water in the trunk and a box of energy bars on the backseat. A small bag with two sets of clothes. Toothbrushes, toothpaste. Soap. Shampoo. An umbrella thrown in that I will probably never use except to poke at things stacked on tall ledges.

Goodness rain. I am almost there.

Ten years of waiting. Of plotting. Of knowing I want to go somewhere, wherever it is.

I want a coffee. I suddenly want a coffee so badly I shove the keys into my pocket and grab a few dollars’ worth of change. One third coffee, one third cream, and one third milk and hot cocoa. Cinnamon hazelnut coffee. With a sprinkle of oatmeal, and tapioca pearls too, if possible. But I am okay with just the coffee and cream and milk and hot cocoa.

I am about to leave when my cell rings. I pick it up. Private caller. “Hello?”

“Hi, Ginny, it’s me,” my mother says. “Where are you now?”

Somewhere. Nowhere. In the middle of nowhere. “I’m on I-90 right now,” I say. “At some service area.”

“How much further?” Because I have a destination. Somewhere. I look at the map sprawled on the seat next to me. Count the increments. Ten miles. Twenty. Fifty.

“Sixty miles,” I say. “I think. I don’t really remember what the last sign said.”

“You’re only there?”

“I stopped for lunch,” I said. I did not mention that I went off the highway for an hour, driving through town after town in the misty rain, trying to envision a destination somewhere in the heart of this land.

“Oh, okay,” my mother says. “Don’t drive too fast.” Her way of saying, “Drive safely.”

As she hangs up I put my hand against the glass, fingers splayed. It is half-past-two. I remember I have more clothes in the trunk. An entire suitcase of them. My mother and I had packed them a few days ago, before she left for China with my father and I left for wherever it is I am going. I have other things, too. A blanket. Two pillows. Several bedsheets. Some books salvaged from the tag sale.

And I remember. I have a destination. I am going somewhere. Not nowhere. Sixty miles away.

I am going off to college. Going, going. To be places, see things, meet people. Break through this windshield-mute. Listen to the rain on my hands, on my nose, on my lips. Drumming. Coolness seeping into my bones. Soaking into my blood.

I think I am ready.

. . .

Or not. I don’t think I am ready. Not yet, anyway, although I will have to be soon. Meadow’s Walk (I don’t really know her real name) has a blog, in which she said yesterday, “Remember when you were a freshman in high school, you walked down the hall in a blur of strangers, lost in the wilderness? And remember when you were a senior, and you could not go 5 steps without saying hi to someone you knew. Then you knew it was time to move on. It's like that.”

It really is like that. I can’t go by a single hallway without knowing someone, and in passing time alone, I’ll be able to talk with someone while I’m walking to my classes, all the time. I still remember my sophomore year (because I missed out on the whole freshman experience) when I didn’t know anyone, and I really thought I’d get lost in so huge a school, and now I know where I’m going without even thinking about it. I know where I’m going and I know how long it’ll take me and I know how much time I have to linger out in the halls, talking with people before class.

So it’s time to move on, almost, but not yet, and I’ll be damned if I let some college essay stop me from enjoying my last year of high school.