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INSIDE THE STORM by Maggie Forrest



It's falling outside. The rain, I mean.


Have you ever experienced the rain?


Of course, there's the streaks of water that sail by the building and treetops, plopping one after the other


plop!


on the rooftops


plip!


on the bushes


ploop!


over our heads. 


They tap-dance on our walls and dribble down our windows, a melody of falling water. 


They run down the glass, blurring the world outside into a watercolor full of vibrant greens and dark grays and streetlights reflected in every last drop. 


They gather. Drops in a bucket, in a gutter, in a crack form a puddle, then a pond, then a lake. And every new drop sends out its own rings, colliding and bouncing, little waves on the surface. 


My rain is cold. It comes in the winter, soaking into the earth, sweeping dirt and oil off the roads, smelling wonderfully new. 


Water has no smell, but somehow, miraculously, rain does. The wonderful welcome, the smell of change, of return, of the dirt and the river and the sky. 


Petrichor. The blood of stone. Soil and water finally meeting. 


Storms are truly mysterious in that way–beneath the clouds and thunder, among the raindrops, the world changes. The everyday slows down, the winds speed up, and nothing is the same. 


Have you ever fallen asleep to the sound of rain? It taps your walls and roof, surrounds you with a cradle of sound, rocks you gently to sleep. 


Have you ever caught a raindrop? When I wonder if the rain has finally come, I stretch out a hand in greeting. The rain is quick to answer. Sometimes I stretch out my tongue, too, tilting my head backwards and having rain splatter all over my face, but it's worth it for that cool, tiny drop, a gift from the sky. 


And, have you ever seen the world after the storm? 


You'd be surprised by how much it changes everything in its wake.


Every surface is cool, dark, and wet. New leaves have drifted to the ground. New seeds, too–the start of vibrant greens in every little gap between stones and sidewalks. 


The streets are full of puddles. If you grab your boots and come outside, I'll splash with you. Maybe we can even save a few worms, carried adrift by the storm. 


But look up. Clouds will stretch and splotch the sky, lighter and in lesser numbers than before, but still very there. The sun catches on a few last drops, refracting them into a spectrum, an arc of colors through the sky. 


And the sun shines. Brightly. Maybe that's the beauty of the storm–when it finally floats away the world seems much brighter than before. 


And when the sun bears down for too long, we can search for the clouds on the horizon, knowing that when they come, the world will be thrust into a new, refreshing chaos and change, where anything can happen.

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