A great cup of coffee, raging fire, sound of light rain drops on the forest. And a four day old earache, relentlessly slapping me, trying to pull me out of this moment. I hate pain. It works hard in so many different ways to take center stage of my life. This morning I am engaged in an all out battle with it. 

The rain holds off for about 3 hours but then inevitably yields to a forecast too bad to be wrong. It is a great sound, rain on the canopy and the crackle of the fire. We had to retreat from the warmth of the fire because of the rain. Now it only provides sound and visual effects.

I knew this was coming. Don’t act surprised. The song the rain sings opens up days passed in my life. Rainy days usually. My childhood, my sisters.

It would be a crime to deny myself this sensory experience. The sounds of the rain is quadraphonic (surround sound for you millennials). It is a testament to our creators power. The world can grow on one drop of rain at a time, and the same drop can wipe everything out of existence.

My pain has now been squelched by anti-inflammatory drugs and antihistamines. It was getting to the point where it was all I was.

The age differential between us and people who stopped having children by the time they were 30 has been fascinating. At 50, those people talk of downsizing and retirement and take more seasoned sort of vacations. When you started having kids around 40, it is a different world. At 55, I was thinking about an Appalachian trail thru hike in the next 5 to 10 years. 

A year ago, I got Covid. When you live in so much pain, denial is a wonderful ally. A year later, I am acutely aware that I have long Covid. My energy is tapped right out. But, you know me, my rage and fight inside is relentless. Even this, I do not accept.

So the pattern emerges in my existence: a pattern of denial and of rationalization. As a young man, this was a far more damaging quality, today, a mechanism for survival.

It’s funny the things we hear in the rain. I suspect there are no hiding places. Rightly so. It is like a journey to a land where pain nor  age exist. During our stay, those circumstances would be the only ones we would have to deal with. 

The rain ebbs and flows as it wishes, setting the rules as it sees fit. Really, why fight it? In 2018, I recall Ben Crawford saying as he was hiking the AT with his wife and six kids: “When it first starts raining, it feels like such a betrayal. But, eventually you begin to barely notice it as you somehow become part of it.”