Rainy days

Rainy days: Rain, reflecting trees in unexpected ways.

Hello . . . Today as the rain stopped for a few minutes, I wandered out in the garden with the dog. She was so happy to roll about on the driveway and sniff all the wonderful scents the rain has provided, wet earth, wet mulch, mint, snails escaping puddles. I relieved the lilies of few more happy legs of crabgrass the rain had encouraged to grow. The rain is a friend to all, friend or foe. Next I wandered over to the orange tree and gathered up a few oranges the tree released in the rain this morning, enough for juice for tomorrow. And then the rain began again, and I wandered, a bit bedraggled into the house again, into the quiet confines of my office, here, to say hello again.

Earlier this morning was filled with more hellos online, texting with a granddaughter, an online game with a grandson, a phone call with an old work friend, another granddaughter stopping by to return a juice jar and pick up her birthday present (a stack of cookbooks loaded with wonders I'll never cook again), a game of Scrabble online with my daughter over lunch. All the while, the rain serenaded us.

In between the quiet moments, I remember the sounds of hospital rooms, machines beeping, lights flashing, and outside the door, the sound of shoes, of people walking, and phones ringing, and carts, and elevator bells. And the clock ticking. And an old man in the next room coughing. Alone.

And now, the quiet. This, too, feels like the new normal. The new abnormal.

This afternoon, finally a nap calls me, displaced from the middle of the night last night, and sleep calls again. This must be a time for lying fallow, hoping for summer growth. And healing.

One hopes.