I adore a summer thunderstorm! My iPhone is alive with lightning and pouring rainfall. The view from the drawing room windows is the same. And suddenly there is thunder! Cracks and rumbles of thunder! Then the distant repeat as the storm hurriedly passes to the horizon dragging its mournful chain of contradiction with an occasional flash of lightning. I count the seconds before the thunder repeats.

Although there was an earlier prediction of the severe weather the sky remained predominantly sunny and cloudy throughout the morning before succumbing to the forecast.  Once again today I punctuated my morning cycle and car wash with an early afternoon snooze and sunbathing on the balcony. The heat and humidity were formidable competition to the leisure but the wind relieved me! As the clouds gathered overhead, I could sense the storm approached. For now – safely seated inside at my desk in air conditioned comfort – I see the slanted strokes of rainwater along the windows. The river is a mess of disruption upon its surface. The cornstalks waver in the wind, a shimmering rug of rich green. The tops of trees noiselessly bend in the wind exposing the softened colours of the undercarriage of their leaves. The entirety is a platitude of viridescence.

It was long ago that I danced in the rain.  I recall the moment vividly. I was visiting my undergraduate colleague and his girlfriend at their house in downtown Toronto. My host was an expert cook. He was preparing stuffed green peppers. When the rain began to fall I raced outside and allowed the torrential rain to drench me. There was no provocation other than youth – I suspect I was 20 years of age at the time. Would I do it again?  No question!

Toronto seems to have been such a very long time ago. Our subsequent visits to the Royal York Hotel have generated their separate memories. I leapt from Glendon Hall to Devonshire House and Osgoode Hall. The rainwater streaks along the windows, large drops of water cascading against the initial slanted patterns of parallel activity.