After the Winter Rain Fell

The rain has a way of changing winter without really warming it. It doesn’t arrive with thunder and spectacle—just a steady insistence that turns edges soft and makes everything look recently handled.

After the winter rain fell, the road looked darker, almost polished, like it was trying to remember every tire that passed. Water gathered in the low places and held the gray sky without complaint. Beyond the shoulder, the field sat flat and quiet, and the trees—bare, tangled, honest—stood in their own thin patience.

There’s a particular silence that comes after rain in the cold months. Not the silence of snow, which feels like a blanket, but something more open. You can still hear the distant hum of cars, the faint suggestion of life moving along. Power lines cut across the view like pencil marks, and for a moment the whole scene feels composed—ordinary, but intentional.

I like these in-between days. Winter hasn’t finished speaking, but it pauses. The landscape doesn’t ask for attention; it simply keeps its place. And standing there, looking down the wet stretch of road, it’s hard not to feel that small, familiar pull—memory settling in around the present like water finding its level.