It seems I’ve forgotten how to sleep in. No matter how little sleep I’ve gotten, or how tired I am, my internal alarm clock goes off and it’s up and at ’em around the same time every morning. I never understood why my dad was awake and doing things so early every morning, but now I know. You young people… sleep in while you can. It all gets taken away from you at some point. Some people tell me, just go back to sleep. If only it were that simple. Once my body awakens, my brain immediately begins making lists of things to accomplish today and I am swept up in my own ‘honey-do’ lists, me being the honey and the doer.

Today I was awakened by my dog, who urgently needed to go outside earlier than ususal. When I walked outside with her, still in my pajamas, I noticed the air swirling around me along with distant lightening and thunder in the darkness. A storm was coming. I randomly remembered my dad telling me once that when you see the underside of the leaves on a tree you know a storm is on the way. I thought to myself, what you actually know is that it’s windy outside and I smiled. Of course there is some truth in what he said; when the wind is whipping the trees around, something is usually brewing. It was still dark and I couldn’t actually see much of the tree branches and leaves clearly, but dad called this one. Morning storms came rolling through.

I love watching storms. I love the coolness in the air, the leaves blowing around, the gray tint to the atmosphere, the feeling that something is coming, and the subtle power of nature. That storm is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Rather than fear it, I choose to admire it in all it’s strength and certainty. I sometimes wish I could be that strong and certain about something. I made some coffee and went to sit on the back patio (enclosed of course) to wait. Sure enough, the air began to swirl and the leaves on the trees were dappled with falling drops from the dark sky. The intensity picked up until it was a full-on spring rain storm. I sat calmly in my safe space and watched. My condo backs up to a preserve, so I see nothing but trees and plants when I sit on the patio. As the storm reached it’s pinnacle, I noticed something. Through the sound of falling water and rustling tree branches I heard birds tweeting. I looked up and wondered where they were hiding. The tall thin pine trees were swaying slowly to the music of the birds. It was a very serene moment; the slowing waving trees and the singing birds were juxtaposed against the dark skies and booming thunder. I thought to myself, this is a lesson. What strength it must take to sing and dance through the storms. Isn’t that something we all could learn to be a little better at? Not to sing and dance in ignorance of the possibility of damage all around you, but rather to sing and dance in spite of the possibility of unpleasantness. While some storms do require us to hole up and hide for a little while, that doesn’t mean we have to lose our song. We need to keep that song alive inside, and we need to let it out when the moment strikes… if for no other reason than to let the world know that we are still here, swaying in the wind. The birds let me know that they were still out there, in the wind and the rain, singing and persevering and waiting for the sun.

I know it’s not always that simple. Some storms come through and all but break us in two. We are left with nothing but a faint memory of a melody. We suffer and we hurt. We are left to assess the damage and begin to pick up the debris so that we can clear a path forward. Those are the exact moments when we should sing. We should hum and mumble the words until it comes back to us and we remember why we sing. The storms are always going to come and go, but the sun is always going to follow. We sing until we have coaxed the sun out of hiding and we are able to see clearly again. As this storm winds down, I am listening for the birds. I know they are out there, still. I hear them singing.