Rain Again

It is raining again this morning.

This brings both happiness and sadness.  Happiness of course because we need the rain quite badly - and from my point of view, any rainy day is a good day.  Sadness because, of course, today was the day I was going to try to start off on a different schedule.

But perhaps that is okay.  Rain is a good metaphor for a lot of things.  It can represent the washing away of old items.  It can represent the renewal of life.  It can even represent the simple fact that our plans, for all our carefully planning of them, can be easily swept aside by things beyond our control.

I am keeping my ear attuned to hear if the rain has finally stopped, thinking that perhaps I could still get a run in this morning.  But the thunder and lightning continue their march by the house as well, booming and lighting up the sky as they have all night.  The thunder will roll and roll and roll, not at all like the short cracks of thunder I recall from growing up.  Again, another wonderful metaphor about how what that which we have always known may not be all that there is.

Ironically I have changed my schedule a bit in hopes that I might be able to get more done.  Instead, it appears this morning that I have changed my schedule so that I can in fact get less done - but have more time to think about what I am doing.

Which is in itself an unexpected gift.  The gift of time to think, to ponder, is one which I continue to undervalue within my own life.  Somehow I got off on a track that says that doing is the only way to move a life forward, not remembering that without thinking and reflection there is no doing - or at least doing with meaning.

I poke my head outside the door one last time.  The rain is still there, gentle and beating down, putting my last hope of getting a run in this morning to shame.  The coffee pot is sputtering the final notes of its morning song, a precursor of the smell that will make its way to where I am sitting with its siren song of warmth and caffeine.

The day is coming rushing at me with the full force of reality itself -but like the rain, is soft enough in its coming to allow me the courtesy of some thought and coffee for a few fleeting moments.