All At Once

The rain started coming down in sheets. I'm worried when you read that, you'll think: "Oh, it started raining." No. One second it was dry and overcast, and the next second my dress was drenched.

I was listening to music on my iPod, and then suddenly I was running.

What is music, if not something we run with - towards something, away from something?

2014 tasted a lot like steam, the kind that rises from the ground, in the second before it all comes crashing down.

Someone once said you go broke suddenly, and then all at once. Or maybe that's when you're drunk. It's simple: the way the heat changes ever so slightly; lift a finger, and you can taste the rain coming.

You can literally taste the weather changing, and later in California, I learned that the sun can burn you to a crisp, but nothing like New England thunderstorms exist.

I didn't have an umbrella. I was about ten blocks from my house. I dodged under trees, under bushes. To no avail. It was like God himself was suddenly as self-aware as I was.

My friend has a tattoo that says, "This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." That's from Fight Club. Lift a finger and you can taste the truth of it.

I wanted more. I wanted California, I wanted a new life. But in memories like this thunderstorm, I miss the randomness of New England. How the whole world, and your place in it, could literally change in a single second.

How my old life was literally ending in single seconds.

But was I ready for change? Or just a new dress, a dry place to hang my turbulent past?

I moved to California and now my memories of New England, in a single second, can suddenly illuminate, like when you see the strike of lightning and wait the many seconds to hear the clap of thunder coming.