When it rains or snows, a pit forms in my stomach. I’m paranoid that a roof tile has cracked, allowing water to soak the rafters, jumpstarting an invasion of hungry wet-wood eating bugs. One upon a time I was a different kind of nutcase. In those days rain calmed my teenage anxiety. On rainy nights in a soulless Chicago suburb, I’d lay awake, dreaming of an all-night Seattle-bound train ride. Pitter pat, pitter pat, the steady beat of falling rain would morph into the clip clop of a train. A mile from home, an actual train would sound its horn. Lost in a rain induced train-trance, stress, worries and thoughts of suicide would melt away.
Way out in Seattle, young Kurt Cobain, fed up, and anxious to be rid of Seattle’s depressing rain, dreamed of riding a train to Chicago. Too bad he didn’t. We could have like totally hung out.