First rain in the Bay Area in 2015 this weekend. We’ve been listening to wind howling and rattling the vertical blinds in the bedroom. Cappy keeps sitting by the glass doors to the backyard asking to go out. When the sun briefly came out and splintered into a flat rainbow – yes, flat, no arc, just lines of color across the sky and clouds – we let him taste the outside world for a minute. Nothing like watching a small black cat gingerly put a paw down, lift and shake it, quietly picking his way 10 feet out and racing back inside. He meowed at us, asking why we made him go outside.

I like rainy Sundays. We’ve got a fire roaring in the fireplace. John is keeping the music alive. We’re listening to George Harrison sing While My Guitar Gently Weeps right now. I just finished re-reading a short story, The Ramshead Algorithm, by KJ Kabza. It gets the imagination going. It’s firmly rooted in this world but opens up an infinite number of other worlds.

I’m also doing the mundane. I’m trying to regain what I’ve lost, so I’ve been rolling golf balls around in my left hand this afternoon. It seems ridiculous that I can’t grasp a receipt, clip my nails or manipulate money. I know I’m lucky. The strokes could have robbed me of so much more. Yes, strokes, multiple small cryptogenic embolic strokes. I’m still struggling with the fact of the strokes. I’m too young. I didn’t know I was having them when I was having them. The cryptogenic aspect means I don’t know why or how to prevent recurrence. There’s always a bit of fear in the back of my mind now. I don’t like living this way. I don’t know how not to. I have to find my own way through. Please don’t tell me you know what I need to do. You don’t know. It’s my body, my brain, my chemistry. I did not bring this on myself. Eating or not eating something won’t make me better. Shit happens.

And if you believe in God – any God – don’t waste your prayers on me. I don’t believe. That’s not a challenge. Just a statement of fact.

It’s still raining. I hope it rains for a while to come. In every life some rain must fall. The drought needs to be quenched.