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RAIN RIFF

Today is one of those Japanese rainy days when the unpracticed mind such as mine is (at least when it's not practicing, which is much of the time) simply cannot accept that the sky can rain so hard, even harder than in Rashomon, when going out into the garden just to get some radishes (and maybe thin the rows while you're at it, since you're out there and it doesn't look like you'll be coming out again for a while, and radishes do not like to be kept waiting), is a lot like being a fish. Being a fish doesn't require too much practice for the unpracticed mind, once you're out in it and have surrendered to the drench, to the power of the universal fluid; you revert pretty quickly to the ancient but familiarly womby days when you still had gills and swam for nine months to get from the end of that great time you were having in your previous life to the beginning of your latest life, that has led to this moment with your current body bent over trying to see underwater to pick radishes with your hair in your face dripping, conjuring memories of the long trip here to think in liquid anticipation: won't these radishes taste great?