It’s 7:33am. Adam just left for work and Clay lays next to me in his salmon colored footie sleeper. I just changed his diaper and he smells like all things good in the world. A bowl of warm oatmeal and coffee next to me, cocooned in my favorite robe with my computer on my lap while I sit cross legged and my mind races. Too many ideas to put on one paper.
We didn’t sleep well last night—well, the kids did. But for us, we felt the vulnerability of the wind whipping at our aluminum trailer. Could it topple at any moment? The rain crashed sideways into the windows and a small leak we missed in the renovation drip, drip, drips. Our guardian dog is barking but is drowned out by the wind. The ducks are quacking, happily. The only ones. I regret not moving our milk cow into the covered stalls we have, and realize there is no wind break there either.
What is it like to be completely vulnerable? Exposed to the elements. I walk through life with so many layers. Does anyone know the true me? But something about a early spring storm exposes us, makes us vulnerable to think all the bad-thoughts we try not to think on an average Thursday night.
What is outside? Crash! What just fell? Should we go check on the animals? The pelting rain sounds like gunshots on our aluminum roof. The door shakes and sounds like an intruder is near. The rooster crows, quite literally.
It’s 10pm, 10:48pm, 11:12pm, the newborn is snoring in his basinet next to me. My boobs are leaking. Adam and I take turns being the one to toss and turn and drift off before being woken again by the howl.
I contemplate taking the baby and going down to my mom’s house. I’m sure the wind isn’t as loud there. Maybe this is just a figment of my imagination. But I turn the sound machine up louder, hoping to drown out the noise. It doesn’t work.
Most of us in California are not very good storm-goers. It’s not as common place here. But each time one rolls round, I feel the wickedness of the wind and I do not like it. It’s like that uneasy feeling you get when you start biting your nails and know something is not quite right, but you don’t know what it is. All three kids, are sound asleep. I wish one of them was awake so I had someone to snuggle.
How many of us feel this way? Completely unmasked, vulnerable to the elements, waiting for the storm to pass in the dark of night in our own way in our own lives? Maybe I’m the only one with big dark scary questions at 2am. But the Voxer messages on my phone prove otherwise.
We woke up at 5:30am—no longer able to sleep. Trying to drown out the wind with coffee and books and companionship. But the lingering whiplash from the night remain. And I’m reminded of my friends who, like me, are reaching for hope amidst what seems like big things.
Around the world, we’re all waiting, hoping, longing, hurting, anxiously unsure of what tomorrow will bring. Some of us more than others—all of us at one time or another questioning everything. In our marriage, in our journeys of healing, in our relationships…afraid to hope that the storm will pass.
And sometimes, all you can do is snuggle up in your bamboo sheets and listen to the wind whip around you and pray to God that tomorrow comes and the damage is not too severe. Sometimes there is no getting past the storm, just getting through it.
xo,
Kate
I love how you related the storm outside to the storm inside us all Kate. So good. ❤️
Really feeling this today ❤️ Thanks for putting words to something we all feel, Kate.