clarity

Yesterday was a gorgeous day. Originally, there were scattered T-storms forecast for most of the day. Then, Thursday night, the forecast changed to “isolated T-storms” and only for the evening. I would finish teaching at 5:00p and the morning was so beautiful, I decided to gamble and ride my bike to work for the fifth day in a row.
It was still beautiful at noon, so I decided to ride to lunch at the Village Idiot for a slice of New York style with a friend and some students.
When I finished teaching at 5, the sky was still sunny overhead, but there was a dark cloud rolling in across the river. I knew I’d better hurry or get caught in the storm. When I got down to I-20, the traffic was sitting still trying to make its way through the 3 shifted lanes at Broad River road and to malfunction junction. The wind was blowing so bad that mist from the river was blowing up across the bridge, but it hadn’t started raining yet. When I finally got to malfunction junction, someone opened the valve. All the sky poured out, and the wind tried to blow me toward the center divider. It was clear that I would sit on the exit ramp for 15 minutes or more waiting to get onto I-26, so I kept going in the driving rain to the next exit to seek shelter.
The rain wouldn’t let up, so I called Allison who came to pick up my backpack and bring my old shoes so that all wouldn’t be ruined on the ride home. We went across the street for an omelet and a waffle while I waited for the rain to slow.
Now none of this is all that big a deal. I get caught in the rain all the time. Last summer I rode 60 miles to check in on an intern, and got caught in a storm on the way home in the dark, out in the country, and rode it 50 miles home. Even my pancreas was waterlogged and frozen. But that was in the middle of the summer. This storm brought with it a front and a cool, breezy next day that cleared the air and intensified the visual of everything.
Last week I took pictures of the waxing fish moon, but couldn’t get a clear, crisp picture. I was doing everything the same as the crisp pics I took a couple months ago, but every one turned out soft and fuzzy. I know, no big deal, how many pics can one take of a round disk or crescent that looks the same from month to month? But that’s not true. Sure we see her same face all the time because she spins at the same speed that she orbits, but not exactly at the same speed, and she wiggles her head just a bit. So the features on her face move around and you can see parts of her forehead or neck at some times that you can see at others. But to see this, you’ve got to be willing to look more closely than the average person, and to pay attention to details. Do you notice when someone gets her hair trimmed or highlighted? So I’m obsessed with taking the same old, nothing but round disk, moon shots month after month. Remember, she’s fickle.
But none of that is what I’m writing about tonight. It’s just that the clarity of the sky tonight as opposed to my fuzzy pictures last week, made me think. Tonight we got a late, leftover, early spring cold front. It will still be around tomorrow – high of 60 and down to 37 tomorrow night. The crisp sky will soon be gone for the summer. In the heat of the lush summer months, a haze settles in with the 80 degree temps at midnight. The moist air sits unstirring and obscures the night sky. Yes, the long, lazy summer can be a glorious time of stress relief and relaxation, but in our lethargy, we can grow unaware of the accumulating haze. It can be stifling if one hasn’t taken advantage of the crisp, naked, clarity of the stark, cold, barren winter.
It took a storm to clear today’s sky and it takes cold and lonely clarity to survive the heated, hazy times. Growth still occurs in the cold lonely winter, maybe the most important growth, when all is exposed, the verdant façade is stripped away and all are made to deal with their lonely, naked selves. This is the clarity that teaches eyes to pierce the haze and see beyond. Eyes that see beyond the heat to comfort and beyond the cold loneliness to warmth and community.
Last week, the hazy moon shared the sky with a dim obscured big dipper. Tonight, there are a million stars shining brightly although the brilliant full fish moon is lighting up the night. The air is nippy, and though the wind has calmed, the Spirit is still swaying the trees and whispering around the corners of the house and occasionally gusts against my neck and tangles my hair.
There is Popayan, Sumatra, Sperl, Fuentes, and extra chairs on the deck.