it rained on tuesday.
rain is good for growing things, like cucumbers and tomatoes and patience. the boys splashed in the puddles and kasher insisted on sitting plunk in the middle of one.
we were cold and wet and we stomped mud across the floor and changed into soft clothes and drank hot chocolate out of pink plastic cups. there were movies and wigs and our nanny brought her keyboard and songs filled the house.
but then it rained on wednesday too, and when we woke up, there was no power, and the lights went off inside me too. i stood in the kitchen staring at a living room full of boys with pent-up aggression and nowhere to go and the television like an angry blank face.
so we tried the library. but the boys stripped down to their underwear and ran around yelling and hitting each other.
then we took them swimming and finally, to the gym where they ran around with balls the size of a planet and they fell asleep in the van on the way home. and while i was driving, a bird flew into the windshield and all that was left were its feathers swishing back and forth in the wipers. and i cried while the nanny laughed and the boys slept and i yelled, “what a horrible day!”
but for them, for those boys asleep in the back seat with tuna-fish sandwich smeared on their cheeks, it had been a good day. and that was what mattered.
sometimes you need to be the sunshine, when there is none.
and sometimes that means just sitting and holding your children, or running around with them in a gym full of balls, or swimming and smelling their skin, while it rains outside.
that night, when i tucked joey in, he turned to me and asked, “why does God love us?”
i thought about the glass of wine waiting upstairs but then turned and saw the masterpiece he was.
“think about the picture you drew today,” i said. “think about how proud you were when you finished it.”
he nodded.
“we are God’s pictures,” i said.
he sighed and lay back on his pillow.
“God has a lot of pictures,” he said, and i pictured a cosmic refrigerator with all of our artwork taped to it.
“he sure does,” i said.
we are God’s creation, on display. and oh, how our colors light up a dark and powerless world.
(what about you? do you like the rain? our nanny does… i don’t. it makes me feel restless and weak. how do you survive days without power?)
there were so many good posts this week, it was hard for us to decide! here are a few that shone:
when a homeless man chases you in china
when life reads differently than i’d write it
*linking today with The Gypsy Mama, whose word is “opportunity.”*