Rise With Wet Wings

I drove to work this morning in a black tunnel of rain. The trick for me is to resist being lulled into a drowse-state by the streaks of light on the wet pavement and the hiss-hum of the tires and the marching cadence of the windshield wipers.

When I arrived at work, I had the place to myself for a short bit, and I made a silent prediction.

As soon as my first coworker arrived, the prediction came true. The first words out of her mouth were, “What a dreary, miserable day.”

Just now I went to get a cup of coffee and stood at the back door, watching the drops fall into the puddles. People arriving at the building were scurrying to the entrance, hunched-over and tense, as if the rain were sulfuric acid. A large crow — one of the ones I feed daily — was soaring with corvid placidity through the curtain of water. I watched him light on the mulch across the way next to my car. He hopped around, picking at things on the wet ground. My mind called to him, Just be patient. In a few hours, I’ll be out there, and I’ll give you a treat. Popcorn, brought from home this very morning. It will stand up well under the downpour.

I am aware this morning of the gratitude in my heart, the sense of largesse visited upon me by Someone through six decades in this life. Gratitude. I wonder if the woman who groused about the rain (as all of my coworkers do, every single time it rains) has ever stopped to consider that the rain brings life, that it keeps alive the food that keeps her alive? I marvel at my good fortune in finding a wife who is so compatible with me in so many areas. She, too, loves the rain and the clouds and the moodiness of the weather as it swirls around us, new each hour.

Now I must be about my work. But I will go to the window throughout the morning and look at the clouds and the life-giving rain that falls from them, falls onto the earth where I sojourn.

I am a grateful man.

~ S.K. Orr