DRY -
It's been dry. And hot. The lawns have gone brown already and it's not even mid-July! I have been busy watering either the front flower beds or the back garden every evening. The Japanese beetles are back but not in the numbers they have been in the last three years. Could it be that we have actually decimated the population?!!?
It's been dry in my life as well. I've cleaned house, done laundry, cooked and made salads and marinated carrots that last for weeks in the fridge. I still have to vacuum out the van. That's for Wednesday morning when it's supposed to be cooler. Today, the van gets a new windshield, again. It's the second replacement. I don't know why rocks spewed up by vehicles on the other side of the road hit my windshield and not someone else's. I've never, ever had to replace a windshield on any of my vehicles before, let alone twice.
I am restless. I am not a good housewife. I need something more. I am going to take advantage of this free time and head to the Lake House for some quiet time by Lake Michigan and to see my sister. It's been 11 months since I've last seen her. It's time. I have books to take with me and my camera and my journal. They will be my companions. I will miss the boys.
I will be going on a shoestring and will miss visiting some of the usual places LH and I always stop at. I will squeeze in one or two. I pray that the snakes will make themselves scarce. Every time I am by myself, the garter snake appears and disappears in the yard or in the grasses by the State Park along the beach. I could do without the snakes.
I long to be working, serving, doing something useful and contributing to the household expenses. I miss church.
Aye, there is more to dryness than just the physical. There is a spiritual dryness as well. Part of the dark night of my soul. I continue to pray and to spend time with the Great Silence. And I have a few things to read that will water my spirit and keep me hydrated for a while.
Like the River Clump Birch tree in the backyard which is dropping yellow leaves like it is fall, I feel the same dryness and thirst, thirst for something more, thirst to serve, thirst to get on with this next chapter of our lives. I tend to the dryness through scripture, prayer, reading, journalling and still it is not enough to quench the dryness.
And so we, thirst in this dryness - the trees, the flowers, the herbs, the tomatoes, the grass and I. Longing for the refreshing rain from the heavens above, that quench and satisfy, revive and cool, and make all abundant and growing again.