Friday, August 21, 2009

Nesting


My mother always said that rain brings good luck.

We have had a remarkably mild summer this year, but for the past few days August has tried to make up for this by offering up a particularly uncomfortable run of hot, humid days interspersed with rain showers and thunderstorms. Personally, I love storms and the energy that they bring -- but the muggy, hot days I can do without.

Similarly, day-to-day life over the past week has been particularly uncomfortable as well: Running in too many different directions for too long, trying to meet the needs of most everyone but myself. Yesterday I finally hit the wall. I was done. I slept for more hours than I can remember sleeping in a long, long time.

And then today I woke up better rested, and the weather finally broke too. The rain is still here but has brought with it cooler breezes and more of these pleasant but unusually mild days. So, before Sara woke from her nap this afternoon I decided to take advantage of the time and the weather by sitting outside and swinging under my sister's tree. There was a heavy grey cloud blowing our way and I knew another shower was coming but I didn't care; in fact, I thought it was perfect.

Just after I sat down I noticed an abandoned nest at my feet, blown out of the tree during one of the storms earlier this week. It was a sweet little robin's nest, still perfectly intact despite the elements. I thought about how much work that bird must have put into building it's small home, and what a good job it did for it to look so perfect even after it's unceremonious eviction from that tree.

And then it started to rain.

It was hard to ignore the parallels to our own nest, the one we've spent so long working on but that will be beautiful and well-built when it's finally done. I took it as a sign that we would find our home there soon -- maybe not as soon as we might like, but soon nonetheless.

I'm going to keep that nest, and fill it up with wishes for all the things I hope to find in our own: peace, good health, happiness, love. And it will be a reminder of the time, effort, and patience it took for us to get there, and of the storms we had to weather to finally, finally, come home.

The rain blessed me today. Good luck, indeed.

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