Thursday Thoughts

I love it when it rains. Matter of fact, I love any type of weather except for wind.

It’s raining today, the slow, steady drizzle where each drop is about a foot apart and falling in near vertical symmetry. The kind that you can almost imagine could last for days or weeks at a time. It’s light enough that the rain hasn’t turned the world cold and dark, but overcast enough that you can look at the world through lids half-lidded from contentment. The only thing better is the overwhelming silence that encompasses a thick fog.

This is the type of rain that thoroughly soaks the ground and enriches the soil on which it falls. A few weeks back we had a deluge, which super-saturated the ground, caused a bunch of flashfloods and mudslides but then washed into the sea and was gone. That kind of rain is purely destructive; it doesn’t last long enough to be enriching and it is powerful enough to cause destruction.

I think what I like about the slow, steady sprinkle is that, as it nourishes the soil, it also cleans. The air rarely smells as fresh or looks as clean as it does during and shortly after this type of calm cleansing. It’s like all the ills that humanity pumps into the sky and drains into the ground and water are made pure by nature again. It’s as if Mother Earth is shaking off our dangerous pursuits for a brief moment; she’s giving us a momentary respite to show us what we are missing—what we have messed up.

And this weather alters my mood. I become softer, my edges blunted. I’m happier, feel healthier, and am more forgiving. My boss today actually commented, “You’re in a chipper mood today. I haven’t seen you like this in a long time!” Well, it’s been a long time since this type of rain.

Under this canopy of clouds and precipitation, I gain new perspectives and contemplate the universe. I have no need to rage against the machine. I just sit, and breathe, and try to take it all in.

Usually I have a point to my posts and to my Thursday Thoughts specifically. Today, I’m just relaxed, mellow, and contemplative. My soapbox is put away for one day, and all the arguments and recriminations are flowing off me like the rain off my head.

It’s good to just be, every now and then. To just breathe.