“This is your kind of rain,” my husband said. “I’m surprised you’re not standing by the door watching it.”
He was right – it was my kind of rain, even though I hadn’t realized I had a “kind of rain” of my own, or that he would recognize it as such.
It was a strong but gentle rain – the steady, consistent kind that comes without any wind or lightning and thunder. The kind that comes straight down and bounces off the pavement after hitting the driveway. The kind that feels like it’s cleansing the air and nourishing the land.
It’s the kind of rain I love to look at and listen to – perhaps because it feels as though it’s cleansing and nourishing me as well.
I find it hypnotic, this kind of rain. And yes, when it comes I usually stand at the door or window for a little while, just watching it and enjoying it. That’s what I did as soon as my husband called my attention to it.
The sun had been out earlier in the day, and the weather remained unseasonably warm for the beginning of November – even for Georgia, and even now with the rain pouring down. While I was watching it from our back door, I couldn’t help but think of how different this was from other kinds of rain, the kind that destroys homes and lives, as so many of our recent, violent storms have been doing.
Maybe it’s because rainy, cloudy days put me in a pensive and philosophical mood, but it occurs to me now that many things in and around us in our lives can be like the rain – gentle and nourishing at one end of the spectrum, or vicious and destructive at the other. Weather certainly falls in that category, but so do things like our words. And our actions. Even our thoughts.
I think it’s time I do a reality check on all three – my words, actions, and thoughts. My goal will be to make sure that everything I say, do, and think will be gentle, yet strong. Steady and consistent. Cleansing and nourishing – for myself as well as for others.
If I am able to accomplish that, my life can be like – well, like my kind of rain.
November 2, 2018
©Betty Liedtke, 2018
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