At around five o’clock on an early-August morning, Arnold Watson woke up to heavy rain in Los Angeles. It was unusual enough to make him stop and listen. It also reminded him why he has loved the rain for as long as he can remember.

In this personal essay, Arnold returns to childhood walks to school with his brother—clear umbrellas, rubber boots, puddles, and the excitement of a rainy day that moved everybody into the auditorium. He reflects on rain on a roof, coffee by a window, the clean blue sky after a storm, and the way a dry city can look briefly changed.

When the Rain Comes Down is not an argument that rain fixes anything. The rain passes. The dust comes back. But for a little while, the city slows down, memory comes closer, and the ordinary world looks different.