I want you to imagine falling in love with something so completely that all you want is to be drowned by rain. I want you to think of the lightness, the highness, the colourlessness of being obliterated by feeling, just for a moment. If you’ve known the rush of an epiphany, this should be easy. If not, try to picture coloured lights strung between trees, outshining the pale yellow stars of a London night in June. A piece of life whiter than sun, darker than an open mouth, softer than the shortest hairs at the back of your neck. Feel them. Imagine them smoothed under new fingertips, deep into the night, closer to dawn now, rabbit-soft, a moment to live a whole life for. Pause.
Now, imagine being so beloved that the outer limits of yourself become clear water and golden light, suffusing the earth and the sky into which you are plugged with the hum of possibility. I want you to feel your own expansiveness and to know that some would pour out every breath they’ll ever breathe to fertilise the soil you stand in. Picture the soft silver viridescence of lambs ears and birch trees, or the butter-hued greens of seedlings unfurling from their paper cases and into their first sighting of spring. Feel the slow warm rise of sap and the shade-dappled coaxing of the sun, dimmer and lighter, lighter and dimmer.
Remember that this newness is time-bound. It is a feeling always on the point of gone, about to be nudged off by the wind, by the rain, by a catch in the breath, spilling over itself and into the romance of the past. So. There is usually pain to come. There will be silences and misunderstandings and the slow falling away of frost. But in this moment the leaves are nothing but leaves and your lungs are full. Brush a thumb against your palm and draw a circle there. Imagine yourself high and light, strings snapped and blown away. A flutter in the whiteness of remembering. A life seen and passed over, burned out in a flicker. Water-weighted, if just for now. Brought down again and sated by the blessings of the rain.
