After the Storm

The story you’re about to read is a metaphor.

It’s also true.

*

The storm comes yesterday out of the West, where the sunset should be.  Instead, there’s a fast-moving bank of black clouds.  I feel it as a pressure behind my eyes first, and then the first clap of thunder cracks over the horizon.

I take a glass of wine with me out onto the little back stoop … lean my arms against the railing and look out over the valley, like someone who’s come to watch the most primal sort of exhibition.

(I’ve always been like this — both terrified of storms and drawn irresistibly into them.)

The clouds churn behind the trees; lightning zags close.  I should go inside, but I don’t.  I can’t look away.

I wait, and wait, until an invisible wall of air slams into the big oak and then the beech, bending them backwards, thrashing through the limbs.  The wind presses me to the screen door at my back and I gasp.

I Sing the Body Electric — all the neurons inside me crackling and standing at attention.

I am still singing when the rain comes roaring through the trees.

*

Two hours later, I walk out the front door and see this, left just beside the stoop like a fragile, bejeweled gift, its message still mysterious … 

This much I know:  even the most reckless things can sometimes leave a little gentleness and beauty in their wake. ❤