Rain

It’s raining in Ohio. Really raining.  As wet and muddy as it is, it’s also beautiful.  It’s like the earth is rumbling back to life, you can almost feel it when you step outside.  

Winter and snow bring dark peace; soft and fluffy and still. The earth freezes; at the mercy of whatever the sky throws down. But the rain is different, the way it seeps into the ground and splashes. The way it starts to change the colors of things. The way it seems to always be in motion, moving and flowing.

Holly wanted none of the rain this morning.  She came to the doorway, peered out, and looked back at me.  ’Oh no,’ she seemed to say, ‘I’m not going out there.’ 

It only surprised me because for days she’s been opinionated and sassy. Darting from place to place, and refusing to be directed in any way. Wandering out to the trees at the edge of the pasture and racing home. She hasn’t even slowed down for a rub or a kiss.  I can’t help but think she knew that things are coming back to life. Her energy and her zest must have been that she too knows that things are thawing out. Then the rain came and sent her scurrying back to shelter.

I wonder, am I the same way? I know that things are shifting, but unlike Holly, the changes I’m waiting for are more then just the changing of seasons.  I feel like I’m on the edge of something, testing my freedom and my determination.  But a little uncertainty ushers me back to the stillness of winter.  However, I think maybe I’m mistaking Holly’s decision to stay inside today as a retreat. A retreat from the change, or from the uncomfortable feeling of being soaked by the rain.  

Holly and I share a spirit of independence.  Of that I am certain.  I find myself unwilling to follow any ideas but my own, I never deny my sense of freedom and neither does Holly.  I feel a need to pull my shoulders back and stand up straight in the face of anything threatening more than usual.  And just like Holly, I find myself jumping away from anything that moves too close.

But I think I’m missing the wisdom. Holly and I both understand that things are moving towards change, and we can react accordingly.   But unlike me, Holly is willing to wait. Wait for the rain to stop. Wait for the snow to come back. Wait for whatever might be next.  She’s not retreating, and she’s not uncertain.  She is calm in the face of change.  She is simply waiting. 

Wild as she is, I’m the one that is flighty.  I’m unsure about being sheltered, and I’m reluctant to be in the rain.  I’m frightened of the cold and stillness coming back and I’m eager for change and anxious to see what spring, when it comes, will bring.  I’m not peaceful, and I’m certainly not calm.

I think that the lesson for me lies in the waiting; the in between. Learning to be a peace with rumbling change, embracing it even, but being willing to sit with it when the path ahead is misty, uncertain, or just plain uncomfortable. And to be just like Holly, who is waiting until the sky clears to splash through the puddles.