What a Difference a Week Makes...

Monday night, after a harrowing night of golf cart derby and scrubbing toilets, it started to rain. Hard. Cold, rainy rain that comes down in buckets. That kind of rain. The evening's work went well enough, but the girl I was working with was very unsure of herself and therefore controlling. It annoyed me. That my period had just started didn't help. Also, I am a smiley person, but I don't choose to ignore the unpleasant things of life. During our shift, I saw a little mouse dying beside the art hut. There was nothing to be done, the mouse was just dying. It lay there taking its last, huge breaths. It was sad and fascinating. I pointed it out to her. She replied, "How do you know it's dying? Don't put that in my mind." I tuned her out for the rest of the evening, but it made me think about how I seek to control my life and how I hate the unpleasantness, too. It's not a trait I relish.

Well, the ridiculously long shift finally ended, I set out in the downpour only to find that I'd forgotten my headlamp and flashlight at home. Great. It's dark. It's pouring. I'm on the rag and irritated both with the girl I'd just worked with, but mostly with myself. All I want to do is go to sleep. And then it happened. I don't know if I consciously thought about it, but I do remember just shrugging and setting off in the dark towards the sound of the frogs singing. I gave up. Or I was willing to give up. It was a beautiful walk. I couldn't see anything. I just felt the ground. I prayed lots. But after a few minutes, I even stopped that because I knew I was perfectly safe. The worst thing that could happen was that I could die. And that seemed unlikely, so I walked. I made it. Without falling, without getting poison ivy and without going into someone else's tent. I just made.

Still, I was wet, and whiny. So I got inside and started grumbling about the weather. That I'd have to walk to the bathroom over and over in the rain. Why is my life such a vale of tears? This went on for a while. For the past six months, whenever I feel this way, I read from the book of Job. I love the part when G-d lights into Job for feeling sorry for himself and afterwards, Job repents in dust and ashes and all ends well. That story sings to me. Well, I read it that night. I read a Psalm or two, too, but fell into a fitful petulant sleep to the sound of rain, rain and more rain.

I woke up to the boom of thunder. I've heard thunder all my life. There's something quite different about hearing thunder in a house and hearing it in a vinyl bag surrounded by trees that can get struck by lightening and crush you. Very different. Each crash boomed long and loud. It was scary. And then I got it. To say I got it doesn't do the moment justice. I've heard about surrender before. I've surrendered before, but not like this. I realized that I was in a vinyl bag held to the ground with hollow metals poles staked with aluminum hooks and plastic stakes. And all around me trees whipped around and thunder boomed and lightening struck. The terror vanished. I thanked G-d for being the Supreme Being in charge and fell into a deep, dreamless utterly peaceful sleep.