I love the rain. But in Boulder, it doesn't rain right.
In Boulder, water just falls from the sky. Sometimes its still sunny even. In LA when it rains, it encompasses you and its on the news and everyone feels it. You start breaking out the canned food and making hot chocolate. And if you have to go anywhere, you will get soaked and your hair will be wet for the rest of the day. The sky completely covers so the clouds are layers deep, impenetrable, and take over the city. The city is dark and everything drips. Everything and everybody experiences complete catharsis and look at each other on the street differently- where did this come from? can you believe this? Everyone slips into an altered state and come together over this shared freak disaster.

Boulder is an eddie. A whirlpool. No one can see out and everyone just looks in and forgets, as theyre spinning with the same recycled water, that there even is anything outside -a river, rocks and falls. And LA is a waterfall. Most people see it and try frantically to swim upstream to avoid it. And after theyre hesitantly sucked through it and spit out spinning, they dread the next one. But if you learn to, you can stay at the bottom and the constant bubbling impact actually softens the water and you can stay there, letting it float you and feeling the force of the fall, knowing youre part of it.

In LA, when you walk, you can feel every step hit your foot and resonate through your body. As if every step can make you of break you. Walking in Boulder, you can forget that youre walking, never completely feeling your feet hit the ground, always trying to snap yourself out of it (like youre watching yourself from a distance), knowing the ground cant feel you either.

Everything in LA hits you as hard as the rain does. The rain in Boulder, you can walk to the bus stop, store to store, and not quite get wet. Im sure some people like that but I dont have any part of me that Id like to keep dry. And when youre cold in LA, you shiver! In Boulder, its there but no one really cares.

I like being encompassed and saturated. If I hug someone- I mean actually hug someone- theres no part of me I dont want to be effected by them. And if I jump into a lake, theres no part of me that I dont want to feel the hard surface as I enter the water. Theres nothing in me I want to perserve or keep safe or hold onto. And Im okay if one day, I dont recognize myself in the mirror or after meeting someone, I forget who I was before. Never plan around me because I have no initiative- Ill come and find my place.