reflections in the rain

Mexico delivers on its promises.

I moved down here primarily because my life was far too comfortable in Salem. And even more predictable.

I wanted to have the rush of getting up every morning not knowing how I was possibly going to get through the day. Mexico has kept its end of that little bargain.

But, in the process, Mexico also offers some pleasant surprises. Even small ones.

Last Tuesday in just blowing over, I said we needed rain. My blogger pal Felipe informed me that a cold front had just moved through Pátzcuaro, and I asked if he could blow it our way. He must have done.

Yesterday afternoon I was reading in the pool. Up until last month, the water has been in the 90s. As the sun's angle has changed in its seasonal cycle, the pool has cooled -- leaving the water temperature in the mid-80s.

I had just finished reading about the increasing number of young American men who are outside of the work force when I felt an odd chill. As if the witch of the west had cast a spell on the neighborhood. Without the amusing addition of flying monkeys.

It was just Tlaloc up to his tricks. There were no clouds in the sky, but the temperature had dropped noticeably. It was cold enough that I needed to get out of the pool and wrap up in my thick terry robe -- the one I never thought I would don down here.

And in about two hours, it started. Like most of our rains, it was just a few drops followed by a downpour.

Downpour may be the wrong term. The laminate on the top of my heat chimney in my bathroom always amplifies the rains effect in about the same manner news outlets exaggerate anything political.

This was not one of our tropical deluges. But it was sufficient to drop both the heat and humidity far enough to let me sleep last night with only a fan, instead of the air conditioner. And to leave some sizable puddles in the neighborhood.

We may have passed the threshold of the very hot season into the just hot season. Of course, there could still be more rains to come. We are in transition.

But the end is inevitable. We will cycle into a place where winters are as lazy as a day on the Mississippi with Huck Finn. And life slips away easily into the grave.