Waiting For Rain

There is a hush outside this morning. No bird chatter. Even squirrels stop their relentless gathering to ponder the gray canopy above. Bright streaks on the eastern horizon fade as grasses cling to single sparkles of dew. The countryside waits for rain.

Last week, I leaned into my car to retrieve something and rose too quickly smacking my head soundly on the way up. I automatically rubbed my stinging head. When I comb my hair, rub or scratch my head, I’m reminded of that painful smack. The bruise says pay attention! Why am surprised with each reminder my scalp is not fully healed? Perhaps the bump is symbolic of other bumps in which I’m expecting too much of my body, of myself.

I remember my illness that ended in surgery this past August. Repeated smacks to my physical body! I was mindful through the depression of illness, in listening to my body, honoring the need for surgery finally. The surgeon did a wonderful job and the ordeal wasn’t as dreadful as I anticipated. I’m surprised at the lingering bruise though.

Did I expect things to go the way of a surgeon’s simple descriptions? You lay flat on a table during anesthesia while the surgeon cuts away this and that organ, glues you up, then 4 days in the hospital, a week recovering at home, a month to get your energy back. Did I subconsciously hear ‘fixed, done - like in a month I’ll feel like surgery never happened?’ Modern medicine is amazing, and I certainly don’t want a doctor focusing on the bum side of surgery, but I long for a more realistic, holistic, respectful approach with professionals to walk with you through the whole realm of healing. Couldn’t there be hospice for the living and recovering?

My father died three weeks after my surgery. Death is a smack to the gut, to the heart. In the intensity of family gathering, planning services, sorting-cleaning out-finalizing details from a precious life, soaking up the outpouring of love from friends and extended family, in the miracle of my body functioning as well as it did, in all the grief and beauty, I lost myself.

Nature often reminds me of the power of a good pause. My soul waits with nature; not for rain, but for my interior to assimilate all that has piled up in my life. I need this pause in the moment too. Looking around, I’m astonished at the tiny whitecaps in the ripples of the lazy brook running through the meadow. And, when did the tip of the maple tree turn red? I don’t know what I’ll experience in this spiritual and literal pausing, only that I want to embrace it.

Joyfully,
Sharon