Around 5:00 this evening, it started to rain. I wasn’t disappointed. I was actually very pleased at this first shower of the new year. It even made me productive. I cleaned. Graded some papers. Prepped for my classes tomorrow. I immediately began to appreciate the timing and significance of the rain. We need rain. It’s good for us. In fact, there’s a beautiful art to it. In my favorite movie, Love Jones, there was a chance of rain on the leading couple’s first date. And in the final moment of the movie, the rain solidified Darius and Nina’s romantic journey. They were literally drenched in redemptive love. In the late 1980’s, New Edition let us know that true love is tested during rainy conditions. Without the rain, the planet we live on would become a desert. Sometimes, when it rains, people fall in love. Flowers grow. We sleep well. And sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Things get thrown off balance. And love suddenly becomes urgent. If it’s raining where you are right now, enjoy and let it take you into tomorrow. ♥

Clinnesha D. Sibley is an award-winning playwright and published poet/essayist. She is the Literary Arts Instructor at Mississippi School of the Arts in Brookhaven, MS. For more information, please visit: http://onepagerapp.com/clinneshadsibley.