Publisher's Synopsis
As a child, I remember sitting on the front porch of our cream-colored, two story house with my daddy, watching the rainstorms. My father has spent most of his life as a rancher, working with cattle. He would sit looking over the wetness with watchful eye, wondering, sometimes silently, if there would be enough rain--enough moisture--for his pastures in order to keep the cattle fed. These moments became precious to me and my family. Not so much because we shared in his concerns, but because it brought with it a beauty unlike most other things within our home. The was such a sweet, comfortable solitude that swelled between us as we listened to the steady rhythms pattering on the roads and rooftops stretched out before us. The sound itself was tranquility.My family has been lucky enough to live in the beautiful state of Montana, where the rich, earthy, mountainous scent of petrichor perfumed the air for hours as we watched the downpour. Breathing in the scent became it's own sort of worship. There was a holiness in the act. My favorite storms quickly became the ones where a person could be soaked through their clothes after spending a few minutes standing under the open sky. The kind of storm where the aroma of would roll in like the instant clouds that stirred the earth to respond in such a way.As I transitioned into years of teen angst and depression, I began to rely on the refreshing aspects of the rain. Whenever it was raining and I was sad, it made me feel like I wasn't quite so alone--like the earth was crying with me and sharing in my sorrows. I did eventually find joy again and with that came jumping in puddles, dancing through the raindrops, and laughing as the water bled through my clothes. Perhaps that may seem a bit backwards, a bit childlike, but it became a pleasure I was quick to indulge whenever the weather would allow.As an adult, I still love the rain. It fuels my creativity when I am able to curl up with a notebook and a warm mug of tea or coffee, listening to the steady sounds of the sky returning it's water back to the earth from whence it came. There is no lullaby quite like letting rain sing you to sleep as you crawl into bed for the night. Given this history, it is safe to assume I am an utter pluviophile. This theme has revealed itself over and over again in my writing, often without my realizing it. When I decided to put together this chapbook, I found that the theme had already lent itself to me in the form of this lovely, melancholy weather and all the ways it speaks to me, the ways it speaks to us and to the earth. As I got the thinking about rain and all that encompasses, I realized we cannot have the thrill of the refreshing storms without enduring seasons of drought. Too much rain may perhaps lose it's golden, grey-hued luster and cause it to become mundane like so many things in life. My daddy taught me as a little girl that rain is necessary, but so is the sunshine. Evenso is drought. When the earth is thirsty, we feel that in a very real sense in which we, too, thirst. Yet, when the rain finally returns, the water serves to soothe and heal and our souls respond. These poems are a response. A response to thirsting, to healing, to finding joy and just as my father taught me to listen and appreciate the rain, I hope these words will show you the same.
