ALL PHOTOS: Mary van Balen
Shortly after an interview with a journalist from The Catholic Times about blogging, I fought the urge to call him back with another comment about the advantages to blogging: It took me out for a walk in a summer rain.
I used to walk in the rain often. Whether the drops were heavy, soaking through my thick hair to drip down my face or were more like a mist settling on the surface of my mane like shining drops caught in a spider’s web, I relished the openness to what nature had to offer.
This morning I used an umbrella not to protect me, but my camera. The original plan was to take a few photos to use in my blogs, but after just a few minutes I was splashing through deep puddles that filled the alley behind the house, much as I had done as a child.
A few dogs and neighbors backing out of their garages took note of my presence; otherwise, I was alone in a world transformed into a showplace of flowers, weeds, and water.
“Why don’t I do this more often?” I asked myself as I looked down at my Teva-ed feet covered in a muddy stream flowing from the center of the alley into the street. No wonder kids like to stomp into every inch of standing water they can find: The activity is delightful not to mention a relief after days of near 100˚ temperatures.
I took photos of sweet peas shooting above chain link fencing that gave it support and remembered splitting open pods and popping round, green seeds into my mouth. This summer is too young for good picking, but perhaps I will return to see if they still taste as sweet as they did to my ten-year-old self.
Hollyhocks reminded me of dolls my sisters and I made from upside-down blooms that became billowing skirts swirling beneath clothespin heads and pipe cleaner arms.
Like a giant mirror, the watery alley reflected cloudy skies back to the heavens. I wondered if the disturbance of ripples caused by my sploshing along was similar to atmospheric disturbances encountered by light traveling to earth from our sun and its sister stars, or by waves we cannot see.
I thought about Madeleine L’Engle’s wrinkles in time that enabled her young heroes to travel to distant places in the universe. Then I quit thinking, content to enjoy the present moment and the gifts it was handing to me. Plenty of time to reflect later.
© 2010 Mary van Balen
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