Friday, January 10, 2014

A Rainy Morning

     Christmas is behind me, and it was a lovely one filled with days of food, cheer, friends coming, and friends going. Ushering in a new year provided more of the same, and for most of the days, a soft rain fell. A gentle, soaking rain that knew when to enter our world and when to let up, only to return later.
     Rains in South Florida aren't always of the gentle sort, as anyone who has felt and heard our summer storms can attest. So when the atmospheric deities gifted us with gentle rains in this gentle season, I reveled in it. Charcoal-gray clouds transported and released the steady stream of droplets. Palm fronds and leaf tips dipped and danced under the weight of wet crystalline pendants. Grass blades, pine needles, and large-leaved Elephant Ears sparkled.
      My energy level reflected the rhythmic fall against the windows, roof, and patio floor. The steady sound invited peace and contentment for several days. Moreso, when holiday music hummed in the background.
     The gentle spilling rain also awakened a gratitude for belonging to a place––my place. My home felt like a cocoon: the kitchen––an olfactory heaven of herbs and spices, blended, stirred, and sampled before being served; cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon simmering on a back burner; and the voices of friends and neighbors stopping by with good wishes.
     Simultaneously, I felt blessed to have a square of green both front and back of the house. Space that I watch, and have come to know intimately over the years. Space, that in gentle, soaking rains, flourish. This year, our back square of green sports two honeybee hives, and in between spilling clouds I sat and observed "the girls," as we refer to them. I chatted with them, their buzz being their chat back to me. One particular day, I told them how the grand ending of one year leading into another had suspended my creative flow. They commiserated telling how they had been hampered with gray and rainy skies, not having been able to forage for nectar and pollen, and how they had to huddle inside their hives. I enumerated to them my resolutions for the new year. They buzzed they would hold me to it. A buzzing push, yes, that's what I needed to hear.
     So here it is, ten days into the year 2014. I should be flexing my creative muscles for a productive twelve months after a three-week hiatus. Instead, I indulge one of my addictions: watching the rain on another rainy morning.
     It's been a wild and woolly last few weeks covering a large swath of the country. With unending snow and low temperatures, I hope you were able to hunker down safely and warmly, and indulge yourself with a writing project or reading a book.

5 comments:

  1. Taking Lottie Home by Terry Kay reading while snuggled under a throw, feet up, and a cup of hot chocolate. Rainy days in Florida, a time to read, wonder, at the talent writers have of taking the reader to places never experienced before.

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    1. Good for you! Isn't it satisfying to read on rainy days in Florida, and put aside everything else? I've read the book and seen the movie, "Dance with the White Dog." Very good on both counts. Now you've spurred my interest in "Taking Lottie Home." Hmmm, need to add to the new year's reading list––thanks.

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  2. Happy New Year!

    Oh, yes, the gentle rains of this winter. I do believe the wet season is reversed. We've had rain nearly constant since Christmas. I miss the snow, but not freezing rain.

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    1. ...and a wish for a happy, healthy, satisfying new year to you. I, too, miss the snow––the seasons (I hail from MD). Florida sun is invigorating in its constancy, so that's why I ratchet back my energy when we get gentle, soaking rains for several days. If you have to be out and about in it, as the Irish say––"may the winds be at your back."

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  3. I just re-read your post, which I'll probably do from time to time. I thoroughly enjoyed the serene mood that it brings from the start of the post.

    RB.

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