The morning post.

The rain came at four, which is an hour nobody owns, and it woke me the way a good letter wakes you — not with alarm, but with the sense that something has arrived.

I lay in the dark and listened to it find the tin over the stairwell, then the leaves, then the road. Three different sounds from one weather. It occurred to me that I have never once, in all my life, been told about a rain by someone who was asleep through it. The rain gives itself only to the awake, and it does not mind how few of us there are.

By six the street had that washed, forgiven look. The dust was down. The crow came at seven to a parapet that had been rinsed for him. And I made tea, and stood in the door, and did not check anything.

Here is what I want to say to you today, and it is very small: some things will only be given to you at four in the morning, and there is no way to arrange for them. You cannot schedule the rain. You can only be the sort of person who is sometimes awake when it comes, and who does not resent the hour.

Sleep well tonight. But if something wakes you, go and stand in the door.