It's been quite a while since I attempted a "Photo a Day" Challenge. But today is the start of a new month, and it seems as good a time as any to jump back in the saddle. Here is this month's list, courtesy of Fat Mum Slim:
Today's subject is "today's weather." With a big winter storm about to roll in this afternoon, I considered waiting until it starts snowing to take my photo. But then I peeked out my window and realized there is already plenty of weather-related beauty out there. For example, this:
Ice can be incredibly beautiful. It sparkles in the sunlight, it drips artistically from the trees and the eaves, it forms fantastical shapes. It can protect and it can destroy. It is both incredibly strong and incredibly fragile. It can break apart rocks but it shatters at a touch. It can kill trees, knock out power lines, and burst pipes. But it also preserves our food, chills our drinks, and heals our pain.
So while I look forward to the beauty of the snow that will come later in the day, I will also enjoy the beauty of the ice that is already here. But I'll enjoy it from inside my cozy house, with my cup of coffee and my fuzzy slippers.
Even if you’re not a Rodgers and Hammerstein fan, even if
you’re not a musical theatre fan at all, you probably know (or at least, have
heard) the song, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” from the musical Carousel.
The clip above shows what you expect to see in June in New
England: bright sunshine, people in shirtsleeves, a light breeze, happiness all
around. Even in real life, June is a time of year when you can actually imagine
a bunch of people randomly breaking into song and dance for no particular
reason. The lyric at about 2:10 sums up our expectations of the spring into
summer transition here in New England: “March went out like a lion, a-whippin’
up the water in the bay. Then April cried and stepped aside, and along come
pretty little May. May was full of promises, but she didn’t keep ‘em quick
enough for some, and a crowd of doubtin’ Thomases was predictin’ that the
summer’d never come. But it’s comin’, by gum! You can feel it come! You can
feel it in your heart, you can see it in the ground, you can hear it in the
trees, you can smell it in the breeze. Look around! Look around! Look around!”
And then of course, it goes into the best-known line from the well-known chorus,
and the very title of the song itself: “June is bustin’ out all over!”
But June hasn’t quite busted out anywhere around these parts
yet. Today is a rather April-ish June, with cold temperatures, cloudy skies,
and dreary rain. Instead of short sleeves and sandals, we’re all donning our rain
slickers and galoshes. We’ve traded in our iced coffees for steaming mugs of
joe. We’re pushing the “heated seats” button in our cars instead of the “A/C”
button. The colorful flowers in the garden are sagging under the heavy rain and
looking like they’d like to bust right back into the ground.
And yet, with the silence of the air conditioner that ISN’T
running in my window, I can hear a whole flock of determined birds happily
chirping outside. When I peek through the rain-streaked window, I can see my
little neighborhood bunny happily nibbling on the damp grass, looking not the slightest
bit deterred by the weather.
Maybe it’s because they don’t have calendars so they don’t
quite realize that today is the first day of June. After all, last week was
full of gorgeous warm days, days when I admired how quickly my impatiens had
started to spread, noticing that our grass had thickened up and was ready to be
mowed, happy at how much the ivy and the grapevine on the fence and spread and
created a pretty green privacy hedge by the pool. If I wasn't expecting a beautiful day today merely by virtue of the fact that it's June first, I wouldn't be disappointed, either.
But maybe they just remember that the cool, damp, dreary
weather makes us all, plants and animals and humans alike, appreciate the warm,
dry, sunny weather ahead all the more. So I’ll try to hang in there for another few
days, and I’ll keep hoping that before I know it, June really WILL be bustin’
out all over!!
Okay, it’s probably not exactly the storm of the century, but right now I’m listening to some pretty impressive “thundah-boomahs” (as we call them here in New England). There’s a big Rubbermaid trashcan right outside my window that’s doing a fantastic drumroll impression as the rain pounds down. I’m not sure that wind can technically blow directly downwards, but that rain certainly looks like it’s falling faster than mere gravity alone could account for.
We’ve had several storms like this over the past few days. On Saturday night, we were setting up the function room for the Hazel Boone Studio Centennial Gala when a storm came through and it was raining so hard that it not only puddled up and overflowed through one of the window frames but it came right down the chimney and poured across the dance floor before we managed to staunch the flow! And last night I woke up with a start in the wee hours of the morning because the lightning was flashing so brightly and the thunder was literally shaking the house.
Fortunately, I love storms, so I was quite content to lie in bed with my eyes closed and enjoy the sound of the rain and the long rolling peals of thunder. And even more fortunately, Ryan is a heavy sleeper and never even woke up. (Herb has the best of both worlds, so if he did wake up – which I doubt – he’d have lain there enjoying it as well.) Although as I’m watching Ryan nap on the monitor right now, he’s getting a bit wakeful and the last loud thunderclap didn’t even make him flinch, so it’s possible that he did wake up last night but just laid quietly, enjoying the sound of the storm like I was.
There’s just something so magnificent about the power of an electrical storm. Lightning can knock down trees, short out power lines, and even kill people or animals with its strikes. Thunder can rattle windows and shake walls. Pounding rain can overflow riverbanks, wash out roads, and flood basements. There’s no denying the power of a storm. And yet, it’s not something I feel the need to be afraid of. I’m safe and warm and dry in my cozy house (or car, or even tent). In fact, hearing a storm outside makes me even more aware of how safe and warm and cozy I am, and maybe that’s why I enjoy storms so much. I’m even a little disappointed to hear this one fading away into the distance.
Lucky for me, it’s summer in New England, so there are bound to be plenty more thunderstorms ahead. And I can hardly wait!
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