Waiting

On news, on rain, on what comes next.

If listening is best for you, I offer an audio version here. ⤵️

I had something else ready for today about an unexpected Sunday, a new friend, and how some of the smallest things we do turn out to matter more than we know. But it involves someone who’s currently in the hospital, and I don’t yet know how she’s doing. I’m not willing to put that story into the world before I know she’s okay. So it’ll keep, and I’ll share it when I can do that without holding my breath.

In the meantime, waiting…

For weeks, the forecast taunted us, systems building on the radar, dark and promising, that split apart before they reached us, pulled north or south to someone else’s space. The soil went to powder, the moss to a shrunken olive-brown, thirsty squirrels shredding plants they’ve never bothered in the past.

Two weeks ago, a shower, barely enough to wet the surface, the story of water more than water itself. It wasn’t enough. It was a messenger, summoning four box turtles from the dry leaf litter. I suppose they understood, alert to some frequency the rest of us have forgotten how to hear, armored, patient, primordial.

Two days ago the real storm arrived: three and a half inches in barely an hour, like standing at the bottom of a waterfall. The sky went dense, laden, gunmetal and velvet. Streets flooded. And finally, finally, the air smelled like rain.

~Elizabeth

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Thank you for your patience today, and for being here. If this one found you at the right moment, a like or a share, a comment or a restack, is always, always a refreshing gesture and a real way to help me build my audience.

See you soon!

If, like me, you enjoy digging deeper, here's another 13 minutes of box turtle info. Finding the Goldilocks video, not too short, too long, or too dumbed-down, took some searching. It was disheartening to discover how many of them described keeping wild turtles as pets. Please, no.