Yesterday, I drove through torrents of rain, along slick roads, past swollen streams and sodden fields. I came to appreciate as never before the merits of the windshield wiper, its various speeds barometers of my mood: intermittent meant a light mist and hope of dry pavement to come; medium speed was a persistent drizzle that I could handle, stupefying in its metronomic regularity; fast meant a heart-pounding deluge, truck spray all but obscuring the road ahead.

For hours I drove with wipers on and then, almost home, a benediction, a clearing, wisps of fog on a mountaintop, a brief show of sun and a shy, hesitant rainbow. I wish I could have photographed the hills as they emerged from cloud cover; they looked as fresh as new creation.