Life's Squalls

A couple of weeks ago.

It was gray, then dark and darker still as a squall line approached my small river valley. It spilled over a distant ridge with flashes of light and the rumbled echoes of thunder.

The wind and rain started intermittently and slowly increased in intensity. The cherry blossoms outside my window felt the rain first. Each bloom bounced and shook as raindrops hit them from above. The droplets pounced and plundered pushing the pink petals from their blossom home. Each flower a pink faucet in a dripping surreal painting that Dali could have painted.

Within minutes it ended and behold the sun popped out from underneath the passing line of clouds. Golden light sparkled through the diamond drops that lingered on the blossoms, leaves, and grasses. Each drop, a value of several karats of refracted light; a Tiffany of brilliance.

The refraction stayed for awhile, then slowly came dusk. It’s was like opening a decorated and colorfully wrapped package to see a dark gray box below. Dusk is an apt name for the light of the settings sun. It could be called dimming, or waning or leaving, but dusk works as the light fades below the horizon.

Finally a red fire sky, only for a moment or two, and then dusk to dark. Part of me wanted to rage against the dimming of the light, as the poet suggested, but that’s another light for another time. This light will be back in just a few hours to start all over again.

Perhaps each squall line of life is a lesson of the light beyond it if we choose to see it.