We just came through a deluge! Was it a whole week of rain? It seemed like a month! Dark skies and precipitation were constants, a sprinkle serving for a break in the weather, a ferocious downpour an awe inspiring twice daily event.

As creeks rose above roads and runoff formed ponds under highway overpasses, some citizens faced flooding in their yards or homes. Those of us, like me, who didn’t need to drive anywhere and don’t have a creek hard by, could just “go with the flow.”

A storm slows my thinking to a snail’s pace, but, now that I abstain from gluten, the crippling migraines that heralded a barometric change are gone! [To those of you who hold this gluten-free business is a passing fad —  be grateful for your ignorance! May you continue to lack first hand experience with IBS or CFIDS/fibro etc.] So I  have learned to take my pleasure as it comes.

It was restful to sit on the screen porch and watch the rain come down. Leaves on the maple tree trembled as the drops hit and slid off. Swirling, muddy water slid by through the drainage ditches beside the black road, off to swell the might James. The noise of the rain varied with the violence of the storm. Our Lab hung close to my heels as the thunder rumbled around us and the lightened cracked overhead.

An additional pleasure was my delight in the overwhelming green of my immediate world. The grass was lush and the leaves on the trees fresh and vibrant. The vegetables and flowers in our raised beds grew even as I watched them. Looking out the windows, I saw the sunflowers and potatoes stretch still taller from hour to hour.

In between downpours, I’d venture out and do a bit of weeding. A careful tug would bring up a whole dandelion, root and all — always a satisfying accomplishment. My hair and shoulders grew damp and then wet as I lingered between the garden beds until the mist went from sprinkle to steady rain and forced me back inside.

Here’s another pleasure: wading in ankle deep water. I was happy to splash through any shallow puddles between the back door and the hen house. A few more steps, just through the back gate, the I found the clover submerged in standing water four inches deep. The ground was soft underfoot, the clover floated around my toes, and the water was cool. A sensory delight!

Such unusual, incredible rain created a new, separate world. During those days, we lived outside of sordid politics and gross injustices against humanity. We could even set aside environmental concerns as we* dealt with more immediate problems likely brought on by man-made climate change.

The Long Rain afforded some relief from our usual anxieties and left us a thriving, blossoming, vining garden set in brilliant green from under our feet to way over heads in up-against-the-blue-sky leafy trees. The fresh morning air fills with bird song and the night begins with the high songs of peepers and the deep calls of bull frogs.

War is another kind of storm that can overflow its banks. Inside my dry island on the sofa, while the drainage ditches gurgled and the rain beat down in sheets, I read The Slaves’ War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves. Now that was a storm a long time coming and still not gone. Long after those cannons quit booming, the poisoned waters still trickle through our lands.

Future times may find others looking back at our recent deluge with an understanding I don’t have, just like those enslaved children marveling at the “thunder” echoing over the Georgia hills — and not a cloud in the sky.

* By “we”, I mean my husband. He was out in the rain attempting to free a blocked culvert across the street. He also dealt with a failing sump pump in the crawl space under our house.