Swimming In It

We have been swimming in it the last few days. The wind, rain and hail have been ummm...let's say memorable. Night before last we woke from deep sleep gasping about the hardest Northwest rain we've experienced in 33 years. Not so. It was hail. Then as we were getting ready for work the next morning it started again, between downpours, heavy hail. Deafening. The size of a thumbnail. The kind that makes you want to yell, "duck, incoming."

Those events and a few others the last three or so days have run us through conversations about the strongest storms we have experienced. We agreed the most dramatic to date occurred a few years ago with dear friends in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Living below the tropic of cancer means living with extremes. Extreme beauty heads the list and extreme storms are right up there. I don't know how our storm ranked on the scale, but I do know the four of us stood in speechless awe for a long time as we watched the deep speeding waters search for every possible way down hill. The loudest thunder, brightest lightening and most heavy rains raised hell. Filled the swimming pool down hill with feet of mud, it's waterfall oozing more of the same. And as dramatically as hell arrived, it departed with clean air and sparkling skies left in it's wake.

On the evening following our "little storm" we stood on the deck overlooking the beautiful calm bay as the sky flushed to deep pink. Such an odd and stunningly beautiful sunset, I thought. It almost seemed to be moving. Then the light shifted and the moving pink clouds turned into flamingos. Extremes.

Tomorrow we are to dry out for a day, then back to it for the week. These aren't rain complaints for I know how dry things have been in other places for far too long. None-the-less, we really have been swimming in it. Just ask the leafless trees.