IT HAS BEEN a long wait. But the rains have finally come.
IT HAS BEEN a long wait. But the rains have finally come. No lightning bolts. No thunderclaps. No 70mph winds. Just a slow, gentle rain, going on for hours now. The wild ginger on the forest floor is waking up. The sarsaparilla, too. Every clump of moss and even the lichens seem to be sighing in appreciation. The bluejays fly around announcing the good tidings, as if no one else had noticed.
And I sit for a few minutes under the carport roof, in my Grandad’s old Adirondack chair, freshly repainted Hunter Green (as it has been for decades) just yesterday. As I listen to the raindrops fall, and breathe the sweetened air, I recall countless rainy times on wilderness trips—under a tarp, near a sputtering campfire, with a cup of coffee, with good friends/traveling companions, and soft conversations about nothing in particular. In my mind’s eye I can still see some of their faces, and in the soft drip of the rain hear echoes of their voices. And I smile.
It is a good rain.