06/05/2017
I was saddened to hear of Brian Doyle's passing last week. Brian was an Our Portland Story author and pillar of the Portland literary community. Here is the full text of his story from OPS Volume 2. Graphic design by the talented, Marisa Green!
RAIN DIARY
By Brian Doyle
November 1. Traditionally the day when The Rains begin in Portland, as I see from my previous years’ scribbled notes. No rain this morning, though, and I set off to work lighthearted and savoring the crisp brilliant sideways light of fall. You know: how everything seems lit up from within on a crystal autumn morning, the air sharp as glass, everyone grinning at the startling lovely poem of it all? Then it starts to rain and by the middle of the afternoon it’s raining rabbits and French people and my shoes get soaked and for the life of me I can’t find my umbrella and I realize with a sinking feeling that The Wet is upon me, moist and insistent.
January. It has rained for eighty-seven consecutive days and nights. I squelch to work. I wear hats. I find my umbrella. One poor little town west of the city gets fourteen inches of rain in a single day. I meet a guy who tells me he stopped in that town a few days after the deluge and asked a resident what it was like that day and the resident said it was raining so hard that people couldn’t get out of their cars, and some people were in their cars all day, and one guy got stuck in his car all day with his kids and the only game they could find in the car was Risk and they played Risk all day and the guy still hasn’t recovered from that, and he heard so many people were stuck in the town pub that day that the pub had the greatest sales day in the history of the pub, which is remarkable because it is a pretty old pub and used to be festooned with loggers who drank like sailors and poets.
March. As I am moaning about the rains a friend of mine actually says, But the rain is our friend, it’s what makes everything so green and lush, and there are so many places in the world that don’t have enough rain, we are really so very lucky, and as he is talking I find myself thinking that he’s not a very big guy, if I move quickly and fold him properly I can stuff him into a box and take him to the airport and send him to Bahrain.
May. As I am bathing my twin sons I notice that one looks greener than usual and the other one appears to have developed webbed toes. I start to tell this to my wife in worried tones but then I remember that she is a Portland native and thinks the sun is a satanic device from which all sensible people quail and defend themselves with turnips and rakes and obscure forms of poetry like sestinas and such.
July. Still raining, although one afternoon the rains stop suddenly and the sun comes out roaring and I see a young man run by me stark raving naked, shouting and windmilling his arms, which is something you hardly ever see. I love Portland. Late in the month the rains cease and I start laughing uncontrollably and have to join the Lutherans for a while to calm down.
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Brian Doyle is the editor of “Portland Magazine” at the University of Portland, and the author of ten books about all sorts of nutty things.
