I sat outside in a thunderstorm the night of the summer solstice, listening to Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons". I watched the patchwork quilt of blue, grey, white, and pink and orange sky weave above me, smelling the heat of the day burn away while the air smoldered in a bath of tangerine setting sun.

I've watched Missouri thunderstorms from inside my storm door since childhood, always preferring the tangible violence of thunder and lightening over the throbbing dull murder of one hundred-degree heat and seventy percent relative humidity, so heavy that it makes my chest feel like it's stuck in a vice.

The longest day of the year just got shortened, lobbed off by a bank of clouds and the pearls of rain.

When I was eight, there was a drought. No worse than other droughts, but it was the only one I'd known. Softball was my life that summer, as it had been the year before, and for eight more to follow. The dust on the playing field coated everything I had, and my mom would make me change out of my uniform on the enclosed back porch so I wouldn't bring so much of my dust cloud inside.

By the end of softball season in August, I hoped for rain every day so I could have a break from softball. You know, I don't think I liked softball nearly as much as everyone thought, because I always secretly hoped the games would get canceled. But I was good. That was the first year I caught. I was already close to five feet tall. The year before, a reporter for the Sedalia Democrat had referred to me as "that husky dynamo at the plate" when I nailed my first grand slam. Nothing was getting past me. This was the kid who got a batter out by catching a pop fly under her chin, then refused to take so much as a time out. This was the kid who took a bat in the face and cried less than the batter who hit her. It was my glory, but I didn't want glory all the time. I just wanted an excuse to stay home, alone, and the rains, if they'd show up, could be my excuse. But they never showed up.

My parents had stopped taking me to church about two years earlier. I'm not sure why. I think they just wanted to sleep in on Sundays. I never really knew what to believe. Even then, the thought of Jesus embarrassed me. I didn't even like to say his name. My grandmother went to the Pentecostal Church of God every Wednesday and twice on Sunday. Some of the women didn't wear make-up or cut their hair. Some only wore dresses, and never wore pants. Most were poor, and few were educated. They all spoke with the same Southern Missouri drawl as my grandmother, unlike most of the other people in Sedalia, which is just far enough north that the dialect starts to clip instead of drone.

I went to church with Grandma Berry a lot that summer. My fun, beautiful grandmother. She'd always glowed in my eyes, with her bouffant poof of red curls and easy, ever-present grin which stamped tiny lines in the fair skin around her hazel eyes. She was young, not even sixty years old that summer. Now, that seems so young, just a few years older than my mom's current age. But at eight, I felt like she'd been around forever. Her hands were already knotted with arthritis, and from years of factory work and upholstering and gardening and mothering and canning and crocheting and when need be, killing the snakes that snuck into her root cellar. During the hymns, she would stand with the congregation, singing in her shrill, rattling high voice that always made my poodle howl, clapping those warm, twisted hands.

I think that's why I went to church with her. It gave me a reason to sing. Like my grandma and my mom, I had a high, tinny warble. It was family lore about how three generations of tuneless Berry yowlers. Despite the teasing, I loved to sing. I just made a point of not letting anyone hear me. Except at church with Grandma. Then, I could stand up with the congregation, letting my childish voice melt into the river of full voices. We sat in the back pew, and I could even hide if I wanted. Grandma urged me to join the children's choir, but the thought terrified me. I was perfectly happy hiding in that back row, singing my songs, thumbing through the hymnal during the sermon.

By the end of softball season, the drought had taken over our lives. Not a single game rained out. All the crops withered and died. The creeks vanished. I went to church with Grandma on Wednesday night, the first time I'd left the cool stagnancy of our air conditioned house all day. I paid attention to the sermon that night because it was about the drought, about floods. We prayed for rain.

The air hung heavy in the sky when I got home. I took my bath and, when I came out, I could hear the gentle thump of raindrops on our patio. I stepped onto the mud porch, pulling the kitchen door closed behind me. As I stepped closer to the screen door, the wind threw droplets through the mesh, splattering me with the rain as it poured heavier. Under my breath, under the purr of the water and hush of the wind, I sang, soft and high, praising the rain, praising whoever made the rain. The lord, whoever that was. Or the collective will of the people. Or myself, since I'd willed the rains for so many weeks. My mom opened the kitchen door and giggled at me as I pressed my face against the cool mesh screen and continued warbling, making it up as I went.

I stopped everything when the rains began tonight, the splotches of grey clouds hazing over the sun, the waters rushing despite the patches of blue sky. Vivaldi on the stereo while I leaned against the screen door, feeling the coolness, awash in wordless music. But this time, I stepped outside, stepped two feet to the left. And it wasn't raining. It rained just out of my reach, but the rainwater didn't touch me. The stillness of the evening, the clink of raindrops on concrete. The symphony behind me. The clouds rolling over the glare of the sun. The heat gone. The solstice ended early this year, and cool night had begun.