Rain

I am standing on the front porch, bare feet on the tiny square of pavement that isn't being bombarded by rain. It's another afternoon downpour that began with low mumbling thunder that suddenly turned to rain so hard it's blurring the woods like fog.  It's something to be living beneath hundred year old trees that bend and stretch their massive bodies in the wind.

Some days the DC heat stagnates, presses in so close it makes the city hum with impatience.  Last night when I went to bed, the humidity was at 97%.  Even the air was ripe for this downpour.  Today what I love about storms is how they interrupt, they break in, even if it's just for the minute when water hits the skin, when thunder roars louder than a stadium of our voices and leaves us standing quiet.  

A fawn darts from the woods, bucking, prancing and stops.  I can't tell if it was a game or he was startled, but now, with his nose to the grass, he doesn't even seem to register the rain pelting his back as he slowly walks back into the trees.

So far Maeve has stayed asleep. She is the first child I have had who is terrified of thunder. She makes her sound for truck and points her little finger to the sky, then clings to my leg and begs to be held.

Maybe she is the only one of us who really gets it – power so much stronger than we are.

The wind is splattering the street with leaves and sticks.  It makes a mess of the city -- power outs, lines down, branches cracked -- and cleans us, too, rushing in new air, a new weather system, the smell of grass, steaming concrete, dirt.  

We are midsummer now, breathing easily outside of school's rush, lounging on my bed reading books.  We are gorging on cantaloupes and peaches, filling and refilling the bird feeder, shuttling to and fro for a week of camp. There isn't a lot else -- some baseball and art, iced tea, a couple cousin sleepovers, Maeve's constant hitting, exhaustion by dinner.  

I can feel my first waves of regret that this will end and school will start again, that our time together will be clamped by homework and activity.  I want to stay here, in the wind, watching the rain blow and the leaves wave like wild flags of surrender.