Crickets and Rain

I never realized how home sick an open window could make me.

 I have crickets at home in Washington, but they are nothing compared to the crickets here in Utah. At home crickets mean summer and late night runs into the desert to look for falling stars that never seem to show up. Crickets mean 95 degrees at ten o'clock at night. Crickets mean hammocks and wind sweeping through the quaking aspens. But here, here they mean nothing. It is a raw empty place that is left inside my heart. Waiting to be filled with new memories.

I have rain at home in Washington. But it is nothing compared to the rain here in Utah. At home we have the smell of rain soaking the parched earth. We have the wind that brings in the storms that dump their much needed water on the farms. We have a settling of the ever present dust that always leaves your car dirty the day after a car wash. We have the cold rain of February and the warm rain of August. We have lightning and thunder that shake you to your bones. And then just like that it is gone. And for a few hours you can smell the green of growing things instead of the brown of dry earth. But here it is constant rain for two days. Here it is clouds that don't let the sun peek in. Here it is sad, and lonely, and frustrated.

Here crickets sing to each other as the rain drip, drip, drips from the sky. It is so strange to hear crickets chirping and rain falling at the same time. I fear I will never grow to love those two sounds together, because I love them so fiercely separately.