El Sonido de la Lluvia

I'm having a case of insomnia, and subsequently experiencing a unique witching hour when most of both Spain and Michigan are asleep. With a six hour time difference, this doesn't happen often. I suppose it could be lonely, knowing I'm just about the only one awake. Instead, laying here in the dark, listening to the rain pattering on the windows, I am enjoying the thought that from Chicago to Oviedo the people I care about are all safely tucked in bed.
It's the magic of the rain.

We have this saying in Michigan: "Don't like the weather? Wait five minutes."
With the exception of the occasional summer storm, it's pretty rare for it to rain for more than a few hours at a time. Actually it's rare for Michigan's weather to do anything consistent for more than a few hours at a time.

Oviedo, in contrast, is famously (or infamously) rainy. There are times when it's forecasted to rain for more than 24 hours straight - and to my surprise, it really does. I've woken up before at 5 a.m. to the sound of rain, and it will still be raining when I go to bed at midnight. Asturianos carry umbrellas the way most of the world wears sunglasses.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I love it.
Rain makes me want to wear sweaters and drink coffee and read something written before 1900. I got my first kiss in the rain. One of my favorite memories with my roommate of four years is of us standing in a street running 6 inches deep with water during a storm, laughing like lunatics with all the other people who felt inexplicably compelled to do the same.

But my true love for the rain started when I was living in Ghana.
I moved there during the rainy season, during which it typically pours for a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours at night. The sound of the rain on our metal roof could drown out everything else. Even when I wondered how our house could possibly stay standing, the incredible force of it was like putting pressure on a wound. I convinced myself that I wasn't allowed to be homesick when it was raining - and it worked. That roar could fill my head and silence everything else.

I'm not particularly homesick here, but even so the sound of the rain has the same soothing effect. There are a million and one ways to feel at home somewhere. For me, it's as simple as rain hitting the windows.

Happy one month anniversary, Spain.