Anticipation makes me itch. The weather forecast promises something rainy, maybe even a bit of a storm. The air is thick with it. The humidity hovers portentously and the breezes ruffle the small and silky leaves overhead and ripple around ankles, kicking up eddies of smaller kinds.
But no rain.
Will it come again? Of course it will. I say of course, but know that last year gave us drought. When do the mills begin to turn again? I listen, I watch. I wait. I go out and water the garden under a darkling sky, feeling in my heart if not on my skin a delicate moth’s-wing skim as though from mist. Not a drop on a leaf, my dears. Not a speck, not a butterfly’s tear. It seems . . .
The barometer will surely relent; the sky will weep; the mills will spin their tales once more. It will find me when it comes: I will be bent over garden beds, walking the front path out to the mailbox just to see. I will smile in the rain–just as I smile in the grey-cloud sun–waiting is something we all must do from time to time. I think it might not be so long before it rains again.
Art-Colored Glasses 
Beautiful description…so perfect.
I’m long-years and miles from ‘that’ weather, but reading your words brings a flood of physical memories…The way my belly fluttered in the storm-charged atmosphere, the kiss of that damp, electric air, and the combination of relief and disappointment when the storm refused to yield-up its bounty…
You said it so perfectly. Hmm, why didn’t I just have *you* write the post!
great post 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
We are on opposite sides of the spectrum. You look to the skies with a sense of urgency, there’s a need and the signs all point to seeing it satisfied. Here, with temps in the 70’s and forecast to remain for another 4 or 5 days, we look to the skies with disbelief and I’ll admit it, dread. How much longer before Winter returns. I’ve cleared many a March snowfall and remember getting out the snowblower in April. May you get all the rain you need and may Old Man Winter, good soldier that he is, just fade away.
After years of spending Good Friday in Edmonton, it’s quite the novelty to have spring come so incredibly early. I know exactly what you mean by that late-season blast hitting so often after you’d hoped things were settling into genuine spring! Here’s to your good-weather wishes coming true!
Kathryn, the story of waiting, while longing, so beautifully beautifully told. I want to bathe in it, but that hardly seems right, with dry eddies swirling around your feet.
Dear girl, I wish you some of this Pacific rain – it is quite unreal! You in your dry silence, us in a drum of a house with the rain beating hard! xoxo
Yes, the family up in Seattle are all aching for respite from the rain! And snow, for that matter, on Tuesday. Mom S is in a hiking group that’s been together for about 40 years or more (some members, indeed, have died off now in their 80s and 90s), and she said even they were fed up enough that today’s weekly ‘hike’ was going to be in a museum! Hope we’ll share the wealth a bit more democratically for a while. 🙂
xoxo
i was right there, feeling the humid air on my face…
Something tells me you’ve experienced this before yourself! 🙂
What an exquisite post on longing… and here in Israel, we’re familiar with such emotions regarding the weather. I love the way you told it, Kathryn.
I could add that the history of Israel is *rife* with longings, from even what little I know. Thank you for the comment, Shimon, I think you know far better than I what this sort of thing means.
Old fashioned windmills are intriguing but this one especially captures the imagination…
I was a terrible cheater here–the photographed windmill is one in Washington, just an old favorite (restored about 30 years ago, as you can see) from near where I grew up. More of the mills hereabouts in north TX are the classic open, crisscrossed pyramidal structures of wood or metal than building-based ones, but I know there are a ton of other varieties waiting around here for me to discover when I get time for a bit of broader exploration. 🙂
Your writing pulled me right in next to you.. just beautiful longing for butterfly’s tears… We are warm and windy here. I planted some.. pussy willow branches! And couldn’t resist some pots of pansies around but I expect I’ll be bringing them in every night!
Pansies are amazingly tough for such dainty looking pretties, though. Pussy willows, what fun!! I wonder if I could get any to grow here . . . !
Now.. those would be worth the try!! xo
I love that photo. I know you are longing for rain after the long drought last year.
ID on the photo is above, in my note to Lindy Lee. In a surprise twist, the weather report the other night said that we’re currently running nearly 40% *above* average for the first two months of this year. Amazing! But after last year we’re such scaredy-cats we think we need rain, rain, rain.
We too are desperate for rain! Our rain tank is just about empty! Your picture is enchanting – beautiful!
🙂 Mandy
We have gotten lucky lately (see comments above), so I will wish you the same, my dear!!! Yes, I love the old Nyholm windmill and am so glad it was rescued years ago (moved about 1000 feet to a safer property *and* fully renovated) rather than condemned to death of old age after it was no longer used actively.
Here’s to hoping you have just enough – neither flood nor drought. We’ve been soggy here lately but that is making things green up like mad and produce more humidity in the air than there should be this early in the year.
There’s just no telling what nature will get up to, is there! As noted above in the comments, it turns out our brief deluges have more than topped us up from the dry spell, but just up here in the north part of the state so far; I’m sure there’s much yet to be caught up elsewhere in the region, and we’d rather a tiny bit too much than not enough. So far! 🙂 Good luck to you too!!!