The clouds were 8-yr-old boys, playing with daddy's magnifying glass. Then: instant shower, punctuated by a rainbow. It was perfect but all rainbows are inherently perfect--and ordinary.

Pit! Pat! Pit! Angry rapid rain struck the roof, like a mob of boys with stones in their hands. It was Movie Rain and it stopped like it does in movies, quickly, cleanly, as if it never happened; instead of the material evidence of water, stones.

Through the smeared window pane, I looked at the mountain's spine, the red-barked Scots pine, the low wall, the wilding hedgerow and, for a second, the scene blurred. Shapes leaked greens, browns, reds, greys. Two years ago I might have thought, Dreamy.

But I've been here for two years. Dreams are the clearest events in the world. I like to dream. I like to dream so much, I won't wake up. Dreams are like rainbows, perfect and ineffable and ordinary. Perhaps that's why it's hard to describe or recall them . . . as opposed to the easiness by which I return to ambivalent, nauseatingly open, unnatural events.

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