It’s 4:50-ish in the morning and an uncharacteristic thunder clap rips through the dark. I think, “It’s been sunny all weekend, warm every night. If it starts raining ten minutes before I have to bike to work, I’m calling in sick.”
And sure enough, two minutes later the sky opens up and attacks the skylight in the bathroom. Fifteen seconds later I’m on the phone leaving a message on my boss’s voicemail saying something about an all-night allergy attack that is keeping me home today.
And such is July, 2011, of Portland. The rest of the country is neck-deep in a murderous heat wave, but us sad bastards up here in the Pacific Northwest are dealing with rain well into July.
I would prefer a heat wave.
So I’m sitting by the window listening to the rain, drinking coffee, reading an issue of Vanity Fair that someone left in the basement, and I am suddenly struck with an urge to tell someone something that is incredibly important.
What this thing that I have to say is a mystery to me.
Who it is that I am supposed to tell, I also have no idea.
But it’s pressing in my gut. It is a peculiar and lonely feeling that I haven’t experienced before. It’s like a version of déjà vu, strange an overwhelming, but ultimately nothing more than some chemical misfire that makes for an interesting feeling.
