Let the rain fall....

It’s raining this morning. The rain is not torrential, but rather slow and drippy accompanied with gloomy gray skies and that raw cold feeling that some falls bring, especially in New England. It’s a day that reminds us that there will be several to follow and then the winter snow…days when there won’t be much work done outside. And so we make the best of the clearer, sunnier, warmer days to do the things that must be done. Yesterday, for example, was window washing day at my house. Window washing is not a chore particularly relished with great joy and hoopla, but one that must be done none-the-less. Window washing is one of those chores that, like mowing the grass, have a beginning and an end that you can visibly see. And so when done….you mark it off your “to do” list. (Hands swished together.. . “There that’s done, thank goodness, until the spring cleaning”).

But I don’t look at the gloomy rain as all bad.

In our house gloomy rainy days and the onset of winter bring a smile from thoughts of comfort food. This afternoon the delicious smell of roast pork in the oven will waft through the kitchen and dining room and even twirl silently up the stairs making us take a deep breath in, close our eyes and momentarily dream of how it will taste. We call roast pork a winter meal, but it will do just fine for this raw chilly damp Sunday. We’ll have mashed potatoes and carrots and some of the smoothest, most golden, beyond delicious, roast pork gravy that my sweet partner makes as though he were a famous chef at one of the best restaurants in the world (thank heaven it’s my kitchen). It is the finest kind!

And we may have gold and white corn, which will soon be out of season to our great dismay. I get tickled at myself for how I look at an ear of corn. While other people study and examine great things, I am philosophic about an ear of corn. Well just think about it. The packaging of an ear of corn would make any U.P.S. store green with envy. There is, if you will watch carefully as you shuck it, many layers of rough tough leaves followed by a soft layer of strings of luxuriously soft corn silk. All of those layers protecting the moist ear of corn. I won’t get all religious on you….but I believe someone bigger and wiser than us all had a hand in that packaging. I place it right up there with the flowers that are not much bigger than a pen head. I marvel at their perfection and sweetness. I marvel at the works of God.

But as the dreary rain falls, I think how blessed we are. We’re not facing the devastation of hurricane Ike, which by the way makes a heavy snow fall or even a long winter not seem so bad at all. And as sure as the rain is here today….there may be sunshine tomorrow or the next day.
So let the rain fall, let the fog roll in…. as the smell of the pork roast fills our home.

I am blessed. Life is good.