As long as we’re not out in the middle of it, and as long as it’s not too violent, there’s nothing like a good storm.
When we’ve got a good umbrella and are protected from the cold, a storm is a fascinating phenomenon. Pacific Clouds, art print from Steve Henderson Collections.
Dramatic clouds drifting around the sun cast surreal light over a scene that, on a sunny day, looks completely different. And while sunny days are beautiful, cloudy ones are as well. Colors and shadows and light that we didn’t even know existed emerge, almost magically, when the clouds move in.
So it is with life, which has its sunny days and rainy ones, its calm intervals and stormy moments. Anyone who lives on the planet very long knows that we need both: sunny days are delightful, but 365 days of them, year after year after year, result in a desert.
When it comes to a storm, it’s no fun being in the middle of the tempest, drenched without an umbrella, shivering in the cold. It’s understandable that our major thought would be getting inside someplace where we can be warm and dry.
But not all storms are hurricanes. Some are like the image in Pacific Clouds — brooding and somber, wild and unpredictable. We’re not quite sure what’s going to happen — and we have very little power over a lot of what eventually does. What we do have power over is dressing warmly, finding shelter, trying to figure out what will happen next and changing our actions accordingly.
When we’re out in a storm we have to think deeply and well, be flexible, find creative solutions, be willing to move. If there are others with us, we work together, each contributing what we can, all the time that we protect those who are dependent upon our strength. A storm is no time or place to be selfish if all involved are to make it through.
But it takes a storm to see this.
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This Woman Writes by Carolyn Henderson 