Rain Knows My Name

Glorious rain. It fell from the sky on our dreary crisp grass, our brown trees, our gasping flowers. Rain. Beautiful wet rain.

Having a bit of rain meant stepping back, staying inside a little, taking a break from the usual evening social routine my daughter and I enter after dinner. Instead we stayed inside to play a game, read the same book (I had to get a step or two ahead of her), and just breathe. For the first time in ages, I sang to her our special goodnight song when I tucked her in.

Rain slows us down sometimes. And it cleanses the mind. Today as the first drops fell, it was as though it washed away the old fears, old habits, old chains that melted away.

Today rain cleared the way, and I finally recognized for the first time, that I really could do anything. I don't know what's been stopping me.

It was a different kind of peaceful deep knowledge, like a seed had finally burst open. Very quietly. Underground. A sudden departure from the manufactured constraints I've been using to keep myself down, and an escape from the mental constraints others have been using to keep me down.

I don't know how I was liberated. All I know is that now, it's suddenly just clear--clear the way you feel after you've been sick and you wake up that first day you feel well again. It's time to decide what I really want to do. And then, I get to do it.

Simple. So simple. Like rain.

No One Knows My Name

from Gillian Welch, Soul Journey, 2003

(lyrics and chords courtesy of Roughstock.com)

C] Oh my mother was just a girl, [G7] seven[C]teen

Oh my mother was just a girl, seven[G7]teen

And my [C] dad was passin' [C7] through doing [F] things a man will [C] do

Oh my mother was just a [G7] girl, seven[C]teen [C]

It's a wonder that I'm in this [G7] world at [C] all

It's a wonder that I'm in this world at [G7] all

And I [C] have a life to[C7]claim though I[F]really don't know my[C]name

It's a wonder that I'm in this [G7] world at [C] all [C]

Well I had a good mother and dad [G7] just the [C] same

Well I had a good mother and dad just the [G7] same

And they [C] took me to their [C7] breast and they [F] surely stood the [C] test

Yes, I had a good mother and dad [G7] just the [C] same [C]

Ain't one soul in the whole world [G7] knows my [C] name

Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my [G7] name

Just a [C] other baby [C7] born to a [F] girl lost and [C] lorn

Ain't one soul in the whole world [G7] knows my [C] name [C]

Now and then there's a lonesome thought [G7] in my [C] mind

Now and then there's a lonesome thought in my [G7] mind

And on the[C]crowded street I [C7]see a strangers[F]face that looks like[C] me

Now and then there's a lonesome thought [G7] in my [C] mind

Ain't one soul in the whole world [G7] knows my [C] name

Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my [G7] name

But I'll [C] see it by and by [C7] cause it's [F] written up in the [C] sky

Ain't one soul in the whole world [G7] knows my [C] name.