My plan to take an afternoon walk was now nonexistent, I thought, as the deluge of rain covered my neighborhood streets in puddles that looked like lakes. The dark clouds covered the sky, turning the once bright and pleasant day into a gloomy one. Bored and disappointed, I stared through the window of my hallway, watching the raindrops fall onto the pavement outside my house. Despite the harshness of the storm, I listened closely to the rhythm of the falling rain. It was calming and gentle, like the sound of a piano. Each drop of water flawlessly accompanied the one before, turning the downpour into a musical masterpiece. It felt like I had front-row seats to an orchestra, but rather than violins, flutes, and pianos, the ensemble only consisted of the rain. And suddenly, I didn’t mind that it was raining anymore.   

Nine years ago, I never would have imagined that listening to the rain would be a hobby of mine. But as the storms in California cover the roads and plants, I find myself concentrating on how the showers form a song, each different, and more beautiful than the last.

Groaning, I blew my nose for the umpteenth time, tossing the wrinkled tissue on top of the growing pile on my bedroom floor. I was caught in the throes of the fearsome common cold, replete with a sore throat, barking cough, and a constant low-grade fever. Picking up my homework halfheartedly, I pushed back sweaty flyaways from my forehead and readied to pick up a pencil and get to work. Suddenly, I stopped, cocking my head. Just over the dull ringing of my dual ear infections, I could hear impatient scratching and short, tempered huffs. 

With more effort than I care to admit, I hauled myself out of bed and opened the door to see my dog, Tobi, waiting excitedly for me on the other side. I clambered back in bed sluggishly, and Tobi held no qualms about climbing over and plopping himself down across my chest. What was to me a minor discomfort functioned as a great luxury for Tobi: my fever. And so I passed my day home sick, peering over the mass of fur at my laptop while Tobi slept contentedly with his new furnace.  

Perhaps it was because it was 1 a.m. We had just demolished a pint of Strawberry ice cream from Coldstone. We had spent the past hour racing around the basement of the library, too tired to do math but too energetic to sleep. We had left the library in giggles, as we raced up the stairs and blasted “All Too Well” by Taylor Swift. When we left the building, it was raining, the kind of rain to splash puddles in, and there were fireflies in the air, lighting up in the dark. I hadn’t seen a firefly in years, since I was a  four-year-old and went camping. So, I tried catching one, and unsurprisingly, I failed. I looked behind me and saw my friends flounder to catch them, just like me.

And for the first time in years, failure was somewhat exhilarating. So, for 30 minutes, we were there in the middle of the night, wind and rain in our hair, dancing outdoors in the lamplight, catching fireflies. And maybe that was the moment, when I, the girl who always felt somewhat empty, somehow felt full again.

It’s a dreary, late-February afternoon, and I’m sitting on the couch in the journalism room with my hands folded above my knees, trying my best not to twitch. My gaze travels through the glass doors as a teacher walks by the green tables outside of the classroom. In this weather, everything looks gray. A foil-wrapped package rests on the surface of the table directly in front of the door, most likely an uneaten corn dog from lunch. Maybe someone left it there on purpose. I wonder who it belongs to. I could really use a corn dog right now. 

My eyes begin to drift away from the door when a slight movement recaptures them. A crow has landed on the table. It approaches the foil package, and while I expect it to fly away as quickly as it had arrived, my gaze follows its every move. The crow gingerly pokes the foil with its beak. Then again. Then, it seems to bite into the package. Soon, I realize that the crow is unwrapping the package, revealing the bright yellow of the corn dog inside bit by bit. 

No one walks by, and I hope no one will. 

The crow has finished unwrapping and digs into its meal. In mere seconds, it clears the corn dog, leaving only the stick, foil and a few yellow crumbs behind. It flies out of sight without picking up its trash, and then I realize that I have been staring at the crow and its corn dog for the past several minutes. But for some reason, the view outside doesn’t seem so gray anymore.