Nightswimming

I walked to the library this afternoon. It has been raining in Seattle for two days with the same measured intensity. The ground is yellow and orange with fallen, wet leaves.

I'm a naturalized Northwesterner: I don't do umbrellas, so my hair and my satchel were soaked by the time I got to the library. From there, on my way to the warmth and incandescent glow of a coffee place, I walked past dark Capitol Hill corners and alleys and porches made beautiful by the early-evening muted glow of a grey-blue sky, an occasional porchlight, the white noise of rain, and the perfect play of shadows.

I kicked at some puddles and leaves and remembered what J said years ago: "Someone has to understand, statistics in a way." She was refomulating something I had said, and it sounded better coming from someone else who was as sure of it was I was.

That's what is most beautiful about the complexity of this weather and this time of year, that makes it superior to a bright spring day. It is in this weather, not in any clearer, that one can derive happiness from longing and certainty from the law of large numbers -- a fallacy with no certainty to offer.

"A rich darkness they love and hate," indeed.