summer time rain

Summer thunderstorms in the South are the best. I don't think that there is anything like them anywhere in the world.  The day of a major thunderstorm...well, you wake up, walk outside (to let the dogs out), and you just know...you can smell the rain coming.  It was hot, like crazy hot outside at 6:00 am when I was woken up because my dog has the bladder the size of a pea.  The heat index via weather.com: 104 degrees!!  But by 3 pm it was dark (I'm talking 8 pm dark) and the thunder heads were rolling in....I sat outside in a lawnchair, underneath our tiny awning, with a book and a glass of ice water (remember, no more sweet tea for me...) and I could only read 12 pages.  I just couldn't help but sit and soak in the crisp coolness that the day had become.  I just watched the lightening strike and let the sound of the thunder rock me to my core...I relaxed as I watched the rain come down and slowly darken everything around me...the concrete, the mulch, the leaves, the flowers...everything became just a shade darker.  And yet, in that darker shade, somehow more vibrant and more alive.  As if the world itself was telling the sky, "Thank you".  Thank you for the water that will cool the ground so that the tiny little beetle's feet won't get burned; thank you for the water that will help the roses and gardenias grow stronger roots so that they can last all winter; thank you for the rain to cool the surrounding air so the beautiful pink roses won't get sunburned anymore.  It is truly amazing how nature takes care of itself.  Plants sprouted and grew and shriveled and died, all before humans came around. Some things would live, while others died waiting for that thirst quenching rain.  It has happened a million times before, and it will happen a million times more, after I am dead and gone.  Nature truly astounds me.

Sometimes I wish that I lived in a different era.  That if I wanted to, I could just get up one day and walk in the world around me.  That if I had the whim I could decide to walk from one shore to the other...just because I could.  That I would live off the land, shelter in a cove of trees from thunderstorms like today's..snuggled deep under some type of cloak or hood to keep the rain off my face.  That I could stop and listen serenely, not to the sounds of humans, that hustle and bustle (and the sound of technology) but to the every changing lives of the nature that surrounds us.

 Nature does not care that our economy is awful, that many despise our leaders, that people blow themselves up for the sake of a God, that people scramble for jobs just to play 'keeping up with the Joneses'.  Nature cares about life, and the struggle to survive (something that we make harder for nature each and every day....example: oil spills...enough said), and relishing in death.  The cycle of life (with or without human interaction) is completely amazing.  Everyday that I wake up and look at my roses or the every climbing morning glories, I am just amazed...baffled by how life always goes on.  No matter how bad it may seem, how boring it is, how much of a struggle it can be...life always goes on.

I really just want to pick a destination, and just walk there.  Get a big pack full of supplies (such as cooking utensils, matches, ponchos, tent, some warm clothes, thick socks, a sewing kit, etc...) and just go.  Leave all this behind.  I like technology, I use it everyday.  I use my computer for email and facebook (and blogging stuff that no one actually reads, save for one bff), I use electricity to turn on lights, and a hot water heater to take a warm shower.  I use running water piped upstairs so I can live in a two story house.  I use air conditioning (thank you from the entire South for whomever invented it).  I use a car to get to and from places that I need to go.  Like I said, I use technology everyday.  But sometimes, especially on days like today, I am filled with wanderlust.  I just want to get out in the world, in nature, and leave everything behind. I use technology, but that does not mean that I just can NOT live without it.  I want to be a child of nature, and let myself be consumed with the ever changing life that consists of the same circle of life.