My beautiful and wonderful family!

My beautiful and wonderful family!

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

The Simple Beauty of Rainfall


For the last few days there has been off and on bouts of rain. At times it's just a little sprinkle, and then other incidents have included trash cans floating down the road because the streets are flooding over with water. Today as I was coming home from work, I saw a series of dustdevils that were all really close together. Living in Arizona, it seems that these dust storms are more frequent than any other kind of storm, much to my displeasure. Then I started thinking that it would be nice to have a good thunderstorm to get rid of all the dust in the air and to make things look fresh and clean. I love that! So, right as I was having this little thought, the rain started coming down...little sprinkles at first, and then it started coming down in sheets and sheets. My windsheild wipers could barely keep up with the constant pounding of rain. I was driving slower than I normally would on a busy freeway, but it gave me some time to enjoy what was going on around me. No more dustdevils were going, that was for sure, but I wasn't particularly thinking about that. It seems that most of the time, rain is thought of as a very big inconvenience. We have to change what we wear (forget about hairdos), we have to carry around an umbrella, we have to take an extra 5 seconds to wipe off our shoes or take them off when we come in the house, we can't get home as fast as we want to because everyone else in front of us is just crawling down the road, and we don't really want to go out and do anything because we don't want to get wet or go through all the above mentioned bothersome intrusions on our time and energy. But today as I was driving home my thoughts were turned to how beautiful rain is. It makes things new and fresh. Don't you love the feeling that you get when you walk outside in the morning after it has rained and there is that smell....you know which one I'm talking about. The smell that makes you just want to breathe a little deeper and stand still for just one more second and soak it all in. That smell also does something to the inside of me. When I smell that smell, my day goes so much better. I am in a happy mood all day long, and nothing seems to get me down. I am energized, and ready for anything. It just makes me feel good...like today is going to start a new sense of determination and excitement. It's just great!


Thunderstorms are exhilarating for me too. Being in the safe comfort of my own home and listening to the rain whip on the windows, and the rolling thunder outside...being inside, you may have to turn a light on because the natural lighting from outside is a little shadowy, but it makes it so much more exciting when the lightning comes. It lights up a whole room and then the thunder can feel like it's right there, almost caving in on top of you. That is a great feeling. I love, during that kind of weather to go in my room, open a window (so I can smell that smell) and curl up on my bed with a warm blanket, lots of pillows and a good book and just enjoy the moment. So, I say that we enjoy the rain! It doesn't come all that often (well, at least in Arizona) and we need to take advantage of it when we have it! So I'm leaving for now and going to curl up with my book and enjoy the beautiful rainfall!

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