The Storm Clouds Gather

We are having a long, leisurely early summer.  The kind that doesn't get too hot because every time the thermometer approaches eighty, billowing thunderstorms gather and team up and become angry.  They thunder and shoot spectacular bolts of lightning in all directions.  The wind gets stirred up in the mix, the temperature drops, and before you know it, the rain descends.  Not the gentle, baptismal rain,  but pounding, cold, mixed with hail rain.  It is nearly the first of July, and I have yet to water the lawns.  I should be mowing twice a week, but I seem to put if off, and then the rain falls and the grass is wet.  Our backyard is looking almost lawnlike, after a few years of just weeds.  I seem to be winning against the curly dock and dandelions.  This week the yard burst into bloom with bindweed.  Bindweed is a pretty plant (wild morning glory), and I don't mind it growing, but it chokes out everything else and grows into places it is not welcome.  Like the central air unit. Deceptive.  Beautiful, but intrusive, and not willing to be trained.

 I love the rainy, stormy afternoons. They refresh everything, wash the dust off, show off the most brilliant fireworks, and make the air smell pure.  I love sitting on the front porch thinking about the mowing and painting that isn't getting done, and breathing in the freshness.  The rain bounces off the pavement, and when the wind accompanies the storm, one can watch the sheets of rainwater spray across the hard surfaces like a rogue wave.  The sky gets very angry and boils with black rage, cut occasionally by the pink neon lightning.  The thunder rumbles like a bowling alley, sometimes non-stop.

  Then, as suddenly as it comes, the sun breaks through, wins the battle with the clouds, and beams through brightly, warming everything up again.  As if it never happened, the sky is suddenly clear blue, and the heat radiates from above.

Storms are beneficial in so many ways.  The biblical tale of the flood resulted in a whole new start for humanity.  And flora and fauna.  A total cleansing.  A baptism for the earth, all the bad washed away and the good allowed to try again.  Thunderstorms have a similar regenerative effect.  Lightning replaces nitrogen in the soil.  Rain waters and nurtures the parched earth and even if fire starts, fire has its own cleansing value.  Man has learned some tough lessons about trying to control natural fires.  A certain amount of baptism is necessary in nature.  Bad stuff cleared out to make room for the good stuff.  Man is such a small and insignificant part of that huge picture.  But somehow we manage to make storms always about us.  100 year floods come and deposit lovely layers of fertile soil to ensure the lands continued productivity and all we see is the damage done to the houses we built in the floodplain.

There is a storm on my horizon.  I am having a hard time accepting that the storms I've already endured were just the first wave.  I know that on the other side the sun will shine, and growth will occur and life will be rosy once again, but right now the storm is just lurking there, and I am not sure what kind of storm to expect.  Hail?  Pounding holes in my life and denting up my well-being?  Thunder and lightning that looks and sounds scary but can actually be beautiful to watch?  Fire; consuming everything in its path in order to create a clean slate?  Flood.  Floods can happen slowly and inch by inch the water invades.  It absorbs all in its path, almost passively, but so pervasively no force can stop it. Floods can also be nearly instantaneous washing away all that dare to be in the path.  Either way, floods cleanse and restore, but it is not fast nor beautiful.  Slow, smelly, long lasting, disease bearing, disgusting.  A flood can take generations to restore.  But it isn't always about us.  I pray that my storms will continue to be rain and even hail.  Fast recovery.  I am a coward that does not want to face years of restoration.

When you watch a storm gather, there is often an intense and beautiful glow behind the roiling clouds.  That "silver lining" is the hope that lies behind damage and devastation.  The promise that the sun will prevail and that the results of the storm will be good in the long term.  Many see the rainbow that follows the storm as God's promise not to destroy again.  I can't be certain of the correctness of that, considering that destruction seems to be a regular theme, but it is not in this promise that I find hope.  It is in the realization that throughout forty days and nights of rain and months of floodwaters, the rainbow shines in the sun and we know that for now, the storm is over.  For now, good can be restored.  For now, beauty awaits in new growth.

I know that once this storm passes there will likely be another, and another.  But in between there is the "for now."  And for now, that is a beautiful thing.  And when the silver lining comes at sunset, it is even better, for not only have you completed the day, the storm is over.  This lovely picture is by Walter Berling, Wilson,Wyoming.

No sense of direction

The last couple of "wanderings"  have included the ghost town of Lynch where my parents lived before they had children; Kaycee, home to Chris LeDoux and more importantly, Kerry's Nana; the beautiful little town of Buffalo; and Castle Gardens Petroglyph site. This covers a huge chunk of central Wyoming, and did not all take place during the same "wander".  Wyoming is having its pay-off for a brutal winter and a cold, wet spring.  The prairie is covered in sweet green and decorated prolifically with wildflowers.

  Places that are never even damp such as the aptly named Powder River, are flowing with melted snow and rainfall.  Grass ripples luminescently in the sunlight and the sweet, sweet smell of sweet clover and alfalfa wafts through the air.  There are few places more heart-achingly beautiful than a green prairie surrounded by blue mountains.  In a few places the bright red clay peeps through and the occasional "break" of jutting rocks interrupts the ocean of verdant grasslands.

During the long, cold winter, when the thermometer refuses to rise above zero and the wind howls and bangs at all the windows like it, too, wants in out of the cold, I often wonder why on earth my ancestors stopped here.  Why didn't they travel on to the lush productive lands of Oregon and Washington?  Or head to the mountains of California?  Someplace where mother nature doesn't go on a rampage for months on end....  And then spring comes.  And the stormy skies "aren't cloudy all day".  Wildlife teems like this is their own personal Eden, the breezes soften and smell sweet and suddenly you are surrounded by the world's largest estate lawn.  That's when I know why they stopped.  And that's why they stayed.  The wild rolling prairie comforts the winter weary like a blanket from God.  The fresh prairie air revitalizes and recreates life within your soul.

I love to wander through the back road byways of Wyoming.  So much to see and experience.  So much history right beneath your feet.  Thousands of pioneer feet pounded their way across this land.  Some didn't make it and occasionally you find a sad, lonely marker to give memorial.  Some scraped and pounded their mark into the sandstone bluffs, so that others might know of their journey.  Some stayed, staked out claims either for the land or the minerals and fought a hardscrabble existence.  They might have taken lessons from their more indigenous brothers, who, instead of fighting to tame the wild land, just lived in harmony upon it.  They roamed like the buffalo, moving along to another spot when one was unproductive.  They left their mark as well.  Amazing and fascinating carvings on cliffs and bluffs, odd rock features on the ground, their tools and artifacts of their daily lives lend proof to the myriads that came before.  If you are lucky and blessed, you may find a left over from another era.

I am often left amazed when I consider the nomad, the pioneer, the explorer..  Surrounded by a sea of grass and sage dotted with huge bison,  and yet they somehow knew where they were going.  They had an objective to reach for, a destination in mind, or a familiar route to follow.  I am lost in the moment when I seek solace in nature.  Don't know where I am going, and usually don't care much.  In this odd land, the mountains aren't always reliably north-south ranges, rivers and streams meander around like lost sheep, and the sky seems endless.  I have a reasonable sense of direction when I'm someplace that cooperates.  Someplace where the landmarks are plain and obvious and where the mountains are always on the west....  but set me down in a rugged badland or on the prairie?  Well, it's a good thing I know the sun sets in the west.  Which also isn't totally reliable this time of year....

When I try to decide what I am to do with my future, I feel as though I'm lost in the prairie on a cloudy day.  Comfortable, surrounded by beauty, and absolutely clueless about what direction to turn, and not really sure I care. I am rapidly approaching the mid century mark and I still am not sure what I want to be when I grow up.  I just want to think "que sera".  So, I'm just going to wander a bit longer and relish the wonderful world, and if anybody wants me I'm lost in an ocean of sweet, blooming prairie,,,

PS...  I am still looking for a job, so even if I'm wandering out of service, please leave me a message!  I may not have a sense of direction, but I do have a sense of responsibility!