There’s something about the rain. A good, heavy rain. The kind that might, as posts go, make us nod and smile and say “we need this.” It gives us permission to slow down. To take it in. Maybe it starts to pick up, so we need to pause and watch the sky – make sure it doesn’t turn into something more serious. Maybe we need to just stay by the open window, make sure the wind doesn’t shift and start blowing water into the house. And while we’re waiting, we can just relax. Read. Write. Rest. Whatever it may be.
So it is for me today. Too often, once the weather starts to change from the seemingly endless cold and gloom of winter, I feel guilty if I’m not making the most of beautiful days. Run, bike, hike, walk the dogs, just be outside! And I love all of it. But then there’s all the daily life stuff that still needs to be done. Grocery shopping. Work. Running errands. Cleaning. Laundry. Always laundry. And then no time is left for just sitting still.
I’ve taken so many pictures since I’ve last posted here, and yet somehow never got around to actually writing. I’ve thought of it! A lot, in fact. And if you kept coming and checking here, thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t lived up to my side of it. But now it’s a rainy day and I’m not going to bother to cook dinner tonight, so I can do this instead.
Two amazing celestial events happened over the past two months here. And it wasn’t even cloudy! The first was the total solar eclipse. It’s the first time I ever experienced one and I simply lack the words to describe it. I was outside for the entirety. It was one of those frogs in a slowly boiling pot situations. You didn’t really notice anything until suddenly it was clear that the world around you was getting darker and it was getting a bit cooler. My family and I were out on the driveway with our glasses, watching the last sliver of the sun fade away. Then we took off our glasses and – transcendence. For roughly 3 minutes, it was as if we had shifted slightly into a new world that so closely matched our own and yet was completely different. And then we slid back.
The second was the Northern Lights. Again, it was not something I could have imagined or predicted. When I first stepped outside to see if there was anything, all I could make out was a very faint reddish haze. Nothing like any of the pictures I had seen of them elsewhere. But nevertheless, I decided to get my camera set up, just in case something did appear. I turned on the LCD screen to get my settings right and there it was – amazing hues, stunning colors. I looked up at the sky – nothing. Back to my screen – everything. And so I stayed out there for well over an hour, taking photo after photo, my eyes constantly darting between the starry, but relatively colorless, sky and explosion of color the wider aperture and sensitive lenses could provide.
Both of these experiences made me think about how much is existing all around us, just out of reach, just out of sight. The world is so complex and vibrant, even when we think we’re just looking at a lifeless sky, a flat expanse of grassland, a still surface of water, the face of another person. And maybe we’ll never actually see it, but just knowing that there is something more adds to the depth and beauty we do see. Even on a rainy Sunday evening.