“I love the rain, It washes the memories off the sidewalk of life.”

So goes the Woody Allen quote. I too love the rain, but not because it washes memories away, but because for whatever reason, it makes the memories I possess seem more vibrant and real, makes me feel as if I’m back in the place and time I was when they were formed. I’m not sure why this should be; I occasionally get these bursts of recollection of time go by no matter the weather or time of day, but the rain seems to be a catalyst of some sort for the synapses and neurons of my mind.

I’ll give you an example. I was at college in Glasgow tonight, and as the train left the station, the moon and artificial light caught the rain-lashed platforms just proud of the engine shed, and in the murky monochrome light I felt the sensation that I could be leaving any train station at any time. This sense of potential always seems to send my mind on a further tangent abound on some neural net/tracery of lifelines, alternate universes and boundless possibilities, where I can access the thoughts and minds of an infinite number of other human beings throughout history. It normally only lasts a split-second, but it’s enough to send shivers through my solar plexus, send the hair on my spine rippling up to my cerebellum, leaving behind a modest selection of ideas and notions in the dusty attic of my imagination, like quires of paper fluttering and cartwheeling through the ether, waiting for me to select one and elaborate upon it.

This is why I feel I’m a writer on some base level; I’ve never felt the desire to question an author of fiction where he or she gets his or her ideas from, because I go through almost every day of my life secreting away little nuggets of information to use as characteristics or plot devices in whatever of my current ‘projects’ I feel they best suit, or letting them fan the flames of a new, divergent notion. The world is a verdant nursery of ideas for those of a creative bent, and while I don’t claim to be a good writer in the slightest, I am assailed with data and information and tiny forges of inspiration every day.

The trouble comes, I feel, with the realisation that I’m not a people person. I never have been very good at making friend, or indeed keeping them, and a characteristic that was described as inveterate shyness as a child I think could now be delineated as some mild form of autism. I’m not entirely sure how one can write novels successfully while the machinations and mimesis of human beings are seemingly always beyond one’s perception.

As a result, the three unpublished children’s stories and first draft novel I’ve written tend to lean more to being crystallizations of my own internal confusion; I ask labyrinthine, meandering questions rather than provide answers. I’d be foolish to try to be honest. I have nothing to offer the world except my own confusion.

It’s still raining outside. I genuinely do love this type of weather; perhaps it’s tied in with some buried sense-memory. What is certain is that goose-bumps will creep across my skin when I hear the percussive rattle of rain and the howl of its accompanying squall, and fire will burn within me again. It’s just about the only time I feel close to contentment these days.