Rain music and new adventures.

Waking up in the dark of my cabin. Hearing the middle-of-the-night sounds; the silence, the quiet shifting of my pup as she sleeps on her Indian print rug on the floor, the soft sound of wind rustling up the gulch, the far off sound of the coal train whistle as it rumbles through our sleeping valley.

 I lay beneath my hand me down quilt, in my naked freckles skin, listening in the dark. Reveling in the silence and the stillness of it all. Knowing my time with this silence is, for a spell, coming to a close. 

Then through my open window I hear the soft sound of rain, first hitting the pitchy branches of the juniper and the tall heads of yellow grasses, which dance in the field to the west of my tiny cabin. I hear the rain bending the grass, singing as it glides down the juniper berries and lands to make the dark earth wet. I hear it coming, moving, dancing towards me. And then I hear the first drops on my tin roof and then more begin to fall.  The song of the storm is upon me in the dark and I am filled with its melody, life pouring from the sky. It's music fills me too and I feel myself grin. 

I curl up beneath my quilt, content in the deep place in my heart. The moon glows silver behind the rain clouds. I let myself drift, back toward sleep, feeling filled, connected, to the stillness, the sweet electricity of the simple, wild world.

This was my last sleep this morning, before my new adventure began, the one that is taking me far, far away from my little cabin and my little bed and my pup and my tin roof and my rain. The one that will introduce me to so many new versions of love and humanity and God and grace. 

And even as I wake this morning and pull my hair into a loose bun and put on my socks and boots and check the last of my things in my grandpas old suitcase, I know that I will miss the sweet simplicity of the life I have been blessed to have this summer. But that's the thing about life, you carry every experience you've ever had, deep down in the jewel pocket inside of you. Free to pull out and look at and remember and love anytime you wish. 

But I know that I am ready, hungry, for this new adventure, that I await it with my arms wide open. Ready to dance into the next chapter of adventure to the music of this sweet, sweet, life.

Baltimore.