Friday, August 7, 2009

Quickening the Fibers of the Soul

A formal happy Friday to you!


Let me just say, if you survived this week, you deserve a hearty congratulations, pat on the back, stiff drink, trip to Disney, whatever. Between the full moon and the lunar eclipse, I don't know a soul who has gone unscathed. It's really just a bad combination any way you cut it. All that said, do think it marked the start of Monsoon season here in SLC.

I've been starting to mourn the absence of rain here. Seriously, I grew up in hurricane country, where we sit on our porches, under a sky that has exposes the parts of mother-nature that bring the strongest of men to their knees, taking in the storm until we feel the storm might take us. We plan supper time around the evening rain, because it washes away our day and lets us breathe easily enough to enjoy our food and our families. We believe that the purpose of the sweltering heat is so that we can run through the soaking wet grass with no shoes. We create by the splinters of light that open the sky in the dark nights of July.

So, I've literally been mourning. Don't get me wrong, the sunshine and blue skies are nice, but after every day for a month and a half you start to become hostile, drawing the shades, hiding under the covers and taking your inner Wednesday Adams to an extreme.... or maybe that's just me? This is exactly what I was doing on Wednesday afternoon around 6:30 when I heard my text message notifier ding (actually its more of a gong... a little ominous... but that's irrelevant). I was comfortable and not moving. It went off again. I burrowed deeper. The phone started ringing. I ignored it as guilt started creeping in. Finally I talked myself into getting up and seeing who was interrupting my angst-fest. Three guesses.... it was the same guy who I have a sneaking suspicion switched out my regular coffee for decaf this morning and continues to play hide the toilet paper just out of Julie's reach, putting her in a very awkward situation at least once a week. (Yes, I believe he does have a death wish - one of you might want to reach out and stage some sort of intervention).

Despite his twisted sense of humor, the darling man, who has taken notice of my sunshine induced disdain, was calling me to make sure I was watching the rain move in.

I squealed. I squealed and bounced and jumped and skipped and did a few CanCan kicks. I ran to the front room upstairs and sure enough, you could see it pouring in the mountains and raining so hard in the city that it was completely removed from view. I threw open the windows and took a deep breath. I breathed it in, held it and then bounded (yes, I bounded) down stairs as the first drops started to fall.

The 6-8 week mark is usually when my eccentricities start popping out in plain view of the neighbors. No sense in hiding it, so, true to form, pajamas and all, I grabbed a bag of peanuts and my dog Bodhi and headed for the middle of the front yard. I plopped my giddy ass down in the grass cross-legged. Bodhi, who understands the 'oh she's dropped her basket' routine, sat down next to me at rapt attention, keeping guard and sensing that this was a very important and strange mission he had been asked to be a part of... and then the rain came. There we sat, planted, faces towards the sky, sniffing the air, getting soaking wet, shelling and sharing peanuts and laughing manically (well Bodhi wasn't laughing but he was wagging his tail manically) for a good 10 or 15 minutes until the rain moved out.

Now granted it was only 10 minutes or so of rain, but it was enough of a fix to whet my appetite for more. Fortunately the wind blew with a purpose yesterday and there's another chance of rain today and tomorrow.

If this is monsoon season, it means two things. 1) I'm just going to be obnoxiously elated for the foreseeable future and 2) it will be followed with a quickness by ... wait for it... Fall.... and if you don't know what fall does to my head space, well... you're about to find out. (no worries, its a good time)

No moral this time kids.... only this... if you get a thick, rolling, heady, baritone, feel it in your chest, thunderstorm.... work your way through it with every expression of passion you can think of on my behalf ok?

So much love.


2 comments:

Dave Carroll said...

Oh, my dear friend, how you would have loved the gullywasher here on the OBX last eve. The skies were black and the lightning and thunder a never ending crash and roll for nearly three hours. This all as I was driving to the range with the wipers on high and no more than 20 feet of visibility on a two-lane strip of slippery blacktop wending through the swamps. So powerful, in fact, that Scionara was not up to the task and high water and Fabiola had to be recruited for the fording. All in all it was quite astonishing and frightful and ominous and you, JE, would have been thrilled by it.

Jacques said...

Here in Morrisville we've been getting rain every night for the past 2 weeks. The next rain storm that comes our way I'll do a singing in the rain heel click just for you.