Rain Gently Pattering
A Year of Noticing - Day 305
This morning I woke up to the gentle pattering of rain on the canvas tent, the quiet, subtle, rhythmic sound.
I immediately jumped out of my sleeping bag to take the swim suits and towels off the clothesline outside so we would have dry beachwear for later in the day. As I was rapidly pulling the clothes off in succession, I looked up long enough to see the sun rising through the cedar trees.
On the dock, the sunrise look as peaceful and calm as the gently falling rain, and shone below the rain clouds.
It was pretty incredible to catch a beautiful sunrise while rain was falling! A unique experience that was a first for me!
After a beautiful day at the beach, the rains returned in the evening. This time with pounding rain, strong winds and a tornado warning indicating that there was a tornado in the area and advised to take immediate shelter.
There aren’t a lot of options in a campground, and we knew not to shelter in the trailer we were visiting. Instead, we hunkered down together in the shelter of the women’s bathroom, with its concrete walls and furthest from the direction of the storm.
A unique experience that was a first for me!
This time the rain didn’t feel as peaceful, as my heart pounded with the potential risk nearby. Still, with the sky thundering around us and the rain pouring down, we attempted to create some peace and calm by telling a 3-word story (where standing in a circle, each person says three words and together we created a story as we circled round and round, us and our children.)
Slowly, the peace and calm, the nervous laughter started to grow more than the fear.
The winds calmed, and we moved to a nearby picnic shelter with a metal roof, listening to rain gently pattering.
xo
You can find all the previous musings in A Year of Noticing HERE.
This reminds me of one midnight storm that my husband and I chose to ride out in our tent along with our two kids, then under age 5. We didn't want to try carrying them through the storm a hundred yards to the restrooms. In those days before radar and smart phones, warnings were often issued after the storm was on us. In the morning we saw many collapsed tents but ours had stood firm. These days, we probably would have looked at the forecast and stayed home.