In our slice of the prairies, we`ve seen the sun so seldom this spring I've decided not to waste it. So I'm writing outside this sunny morning, perched on an old willow chair in my favourite part of our backyard.
Birdsong surrounds me, and the wind whispers through this grove of old maples. It toys with the rope swing, sways it east, then west, as though prompted so by an invisible child.Until just a few days ago, the backyard of Hope House - like many others nearby - didn't invite hopefulness.
"It's the wettest year we've had in over a hundred years," I've heard, from people who keep track of such things. People whose parents and grandparents likely did the same.Basements that have never flooded before have decided to try it. Dark patches lay like shadows across the concrete in our own. Backyards feel like wet sponges, and dirt roads and lanes are a sea of mud.
Rain wouldn't seem half so bad, if it didn't need clouds to deliver it. Fretting about whether the deluge will hold off long enough to pot or plant, side, paint, or build would be much more fun if we could park our complaining selves in a willow chair in a sweet breeze, surrounded by brightness and birdsong.
But clouds and complaints keep company as surely as sunshine and bright thoughts.We prairie people aren't used to long strings of cloudy days. We share our misery like a bad cold. Even the optimistic find it difficult to rise above the clouds. After all, a silver lining requires at least a tiny beam of sun.
Reared on Canada's wet Western edge, I grew up singing, "Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day. Rain, rain, go away, please let all the children play." Nevertheless, if we wanted to enjoy the emerald coast, we had no choice but to make peace with the stuff that made it green. That meant slickers, rubbers, and umbrellas. From autumn to spring, we rarely left home without them.
Perhaps that's our problem, we flatlanders. Most of us aren't equipped for month-long rains.
But here I sit, surrounded by a green as lovely as any of my youth - because of the rain. The sun seems twice as bright as I remember it, and hope fills my heart for my sodden yard and the fields of our farmer friends.
The two-foot, three-striped black garter snake that almost slithered over my foot a moment ago seems happy too. His narrow pink tongue tasted my welcome, and seemed to find it to his liking. He circled me, returning for more. Snakes don't hear kind words often, I suspect.
God, who does everything well, and who whispers beauty through every weather - thank you for this reprieve of sunshine. Forgive our complaints, and remind us that you've given us the ability to choose which side of the clouds to live on.
But help me find a pair of rubber boots, please. It's clouding over again.
