I Remember Rain | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant memoirs of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    How lovely it was to wake to the sound of a steady, gentle rain. I woke up feeling well rested, but the rain acted as a lullaby, so I did not rouse for a short while. Instead, I listened to the "water music". I was thankful that today, I did not have to rush anywhere. The day was mine and I took great delight in that.

    Yesterday, I cleaned the yard up and painted the kitchen cabinets, in addition to the daily housekeeping. I had planned to paint the awning today, but truthfully, I am glad it is raining. Rain gives me permission to watch old movies, even if the barn is not finished and the stripes on the awning, have faded into a dreadful state. No matter, how I remind myself that "Rome was not built in a day" , I find it difficult not to prove that wrong . . if the sun is shining.

    I will not be entirely idle today. I managed to get an old dresser drawer unstuck, yesterday, but the thing came apart on me, in the process. I can repair that today. The front porch can be tidied up and I may paint a flower pot as the thyme is complaining lately. It is a good day to call an old friend, too -oh, but a rainy day is good for a lot of things.

    When I was child, rainy days were good for a lot of things as well. It was on those days, that my sister and I were allowed to drag out clothes from a chest, in Grandmas' pink bedroom and dress up in all sorts odd outfits. There were high heels and pocketbooks, as well as dresses. We did not transform to princesses, but instead acted like the adults around us. We had names likes "Lillian" and "Delphie" and we acted quite proper. Usually a doll would get sick, when it rained. We looked at the "World Books" for long whiles. I declare I learned to read from the encyclopedias in the mohagony book case, long before I went to school.

    We had paper dolls too and cut up old Sears & Roebuck catalogs, to make more. I liked paper dolls when they were new, but in a short while, they became flimsy , and were apt to lose arms and heads. It always shocked me and I felt like a murderer, because of it.

    In the afternoons, when Grandma got a chance to sit down, we often put on shows for her with songs and dances. Later she would tell us stories, that she made up, about such things as a monkey or a circus. Horrible things would happen, in her tales, but somehow they had happy endings.

    Rainy days were happy occasions, unless they went on for days. By then folks were grumpy-and all the paper dolls had died tragic deaths. Laundry hung on the back porch and eliminated our performances. My sister and I would argue and the dolls argued too. Thank goodness, for the World Books. We always went back to them.

    It is no wonder, that I see a rainy day, as a holiday, of sorts. I will be quite content to paint flowers on pots and buckets-and hopefully repair the dresser drawer. Instead of reading about horses, trees and Helen Keller, I will find a strategy against the bumblebees in the barn, that have stung me, Kyle and Cash -and so hindered our progress. I will pretend that I am a writer, living in a small cottage with a small yard full of flowers and rabbits- and void of old barns with rotten floors and bumblees . . .and on rainy days, Lyla will visit, because I have a story to tell.