Picture This: Suburbia on a Rainy Night

Picture This: Suburbia on a Rainy Night

The rainy evenings in autumn are cold and brisk here in Alaska, especially this late in the season.  My husband and I recently took a walk during a night when the rain was just barely a sprinkle.
It was almost cold enough outside to see our breath and the wet chill in the air made everything very final.  We both knew this could have been our last nighttime walk before snow was coming down instead of rain.
I grabbed the camera to capture the images that were special to this crisp dark rainy Alaska night.  I took the photo above of a small solar-powered lantern in my driveway, with the collected rain on the street  and curb reflecting the red tail lights of a passing car.
The streetlights cut through the night and reflected off of the pooled rainwater left on the hard black asphalt.
 
I couldn’t help remembering the lines from one of my favorite songs in the musical Guys & Dolls, as the gambler sings of his sad but prideful life as a loner:

“My time of day is the dark time
A couple of deals before dawn
When the street belongs to the cop
And the janitor with the mop
And the grocery clerks are all gone.

When the smell of the rainwashed pavement
Comes up clean, and fresh, and cold
And the streetlamp light
Fills the gutter with gold
That’s my time of day
My time of day
And you’re the only doll I’ve ever wanted to share it with me.”

That dark night is burned into my mind forever: the dark side of the paradise that is suburbia, painted in purple and blue with a warm orange glow that burns through the seconds as everyone sleeps inside those neatly packaged homes.
And after the last shutter-click, we put on the lens cap, held hands and walked back inside our cookie-cutter home to enjoy suburbia on a rainy night from a warmer vantage point.