Summer Shower

One never means to get caught in a sudden rainstorm. I certainly didn't see it coming. When I left the dorm with my blue falcon hat and my digital camera, it was a sunny day with blue skies and a light breeze. I thought it an ideal time to capture scenes from the bluff for my "beauty ports." I am working on putting together powerpoints of nature scenes coupled with Scripture verses and soothing music to load on digital picture frames and iPods to give to cancer patients who are 'land-locked' and unable to get outdoors.

It was one thing I couldn't get enough of after my severe bouts - the beauty of God's good world. After the devastation of cancer, you find yourself crying at the drop of a hat for no reason - at least no current reason. It is the bottled up tears of pain and sadness not cried while all your energy goes into the physical fight. They have to come out. And your insides are so barren, like a wasteland. So you feed it with beauty and eventually, weeds grow over the scars and the landscape is tolerable again and the embarrassing tears stop.

So I have this theory that if I had fed my soul with beauty and truth while I was fighting, it might not have gotten so dire. Anyway, there I was wandering down the road towards the beach, stopping every few feet to take a picture of a wildflower or a shot of the lake or the greenery or whatnot, and I felt the unmistakable drop of rain on my hand.

I looked down at the beach, and there was a family with two small children hurriedly packing up and dashing up the road to their car before the storm hit in earnest. I glanced at the sky - where had those black clouds come from? Just a moment ago the sky was blue and the breeze warm! I debated whether to turn around right then and there and not descend to the lake.

Another drop hit my arm, another my big toe. Suddenly I remembered when I was a little girl on a hot hot summer day in my Gram's side yard with my sister. It started to rain and we squealed with delight at the relief from the heat. We danced and pranced and cavorted about, lifting our faces to the sky and opening our mouths wide to catch the cool drops, and laughing when they splopped on our faces and splattered in our eyes.

Oh, we whirled and twirled and danced with delight and in a New York minute it was over, leaving us drenched and refreshed. There was always a rainbow after such an event, and the inevitable steaming street and the hollow sound to your voice as you yelled to your neighbor to see if they had taken the same shower you just did.

Yes, its been a long time since I had that much fun. I threw caution to the wind and kept descending, hoping perhaps I could recapture some small slice of my childhood. I tucked the camera in my pocket and lifted my face to the sky, daring the rain to bring it on. But the rain did not want to play. Barely a mist of rain wrung out of the clouds. About all that got wet was my hat and not even a tiny little millimeter of sand.

Ah, well. At least I didn't miss out on my walk. I looked about expectantly for a rainbow, but there was nary a sparkle in sight. Time to get back to gathering wildflower pictures. Perhaps I can recapture my childhood without getting too senile another day.