Sitting outside the open kitchen door at the onset of evening. The light from the kitchen window catches on a ribbon, a remnant from the last baby shower, as it dances in the wind. The wind, arriving first before the thunder and the rain - whipping through the yard. The young poplars almost bending to the ground then springing back as if in joyful defiance to the coming storm. They know, perhaps, the depth of their own roots and the sinew of their own form, how much their branches can give and if they were rigid, how they would break.
I am nursing Julian in the old velvet rocker on the front porch until it starts to flood. Which it always does. I am picking up all the doormats as the rivulets of water rush in towards each other across the dusty cement. Julian has crawled outside to the line where the rain begins, is covering an old paperback book with dirt.
How are we the same as the trees? How am I deepening my roots, practicing my flexibility? Sometimes it takes a force larger than yourself to feel whole again. Who can say that a spiritual life is not important if they have sat at the edge of a storm and watched the trees in the wind.