Can You Hear Me

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads.
They might as well be dead.
If the rain comes, if the rain comes.

It rained all night, and hard. All day yesterday. It seems to rain all the time, but of course that’s not possible. But seeming matters, for we are animals. There has been no summer to speak of. July is the average hottest month here. We may never have summer at all.

The hottest temperature ever recorded here in Marion was 100 degrees, in 1975. I’m fairly certain we have never touched 80 even once this month, though it is the average high temperature we should expect here in July.

When the sun shines they slip into the shade
And drink their lemonade.
When the sun shines, when the sun shines.
Rain, I don’t mind.
Shine, the weather’s fine.

It is an interior life I live, anyway. I see four concrete walls all day, lighted by dreary fluorescents, and by the time that’s over so is any daylight, so you get a kind of submarine vibe in your life.

One searches for meaning everywhere, including where it is unlikely to be found. It has occurred to me that the vital thing is the promise of something. The availability of many things, whether you care to use them or not at any given time, matters. The car in the driveway serves a purpose far beyond the time you’re actively driving it. The car itself is just a hood ornament on the important thing: Mobility. I could leave and go elsewhere if I wanted to or needed to is a profoundly important idea. It is why it captivated the American psyche.

I can show you that when it starts to rain,
Everything’s the same.
I can show you, I can show you.
Rain, I don’t mind.
Shine, the weather’s fine.

We are hectored. Persons whose intellectual cupboard resembles a penthouse refrigerator — empty because they know they’re going to eat in a restaurant for every meal — are wondering why you have food in your larder. Telling you that you don’t need a lot of things. These things are a burden and you’d be happier without them. You’re not using them right now, so they are of doubtful utility. They demonstrate your existential car is useless by pointing out that you don’t drive in a circle around your astral abode all the time. Wouldn’t you be happier on the transcendental tram?

No. A real adult lives for the promise of things.

Can you hear me, that when it rains and shines,
It’s just a state of mind?
Can you hear me, can you hear me?