Desert Rain | Acceptance - Innermost Garden

The walk to the beach started as it typically does. The heavy iron gate closed behind the two of us as we stepped into the glaring afternoon sun of the unshaded street.

We strolled past haphazard rows of parked cars lining the low streets and vibrant bougainvilleas sprawling over the high cement walls enclosing each tan and ivory colored villa.

Reaching the main intersection, we waited for the streetlights to change. It was then that I noticed the sky shifting.

The brilliant blue sky – uncharacteristic in this city more often draped in a fine haze of high atmospheric sand – now had a dark grey pool of clouds seeping in from the ocean side.

The streetlight turned green, and we began to cross the street. One lane, two lanes…chatting…three lanes, four.

As we crossed over the raised median, I saw that the dark clouds were quickly streaming inland, now covering over half the sky. One more lane and the wind suddenly gusted, pulsing rippling waves across the palm fronds in front of us.

Maybe it’s not a day for a walk on the beach after all.

But we’d made it this far, so we might as well see what’s happening at the ocean. I love experiencing a wind-whipped sea from the imagined safety of the dunes.

A half a block in and the street became a wind tunnel, ripping loose branches and sending anything unsecured racing inland. Walking forward became a treacherous workout. Time to turn back.

We turned and dutifully waited at the streetlight, on high alert as debris rushed down the street and across the road. Cars slowed.

And then the first drop of rain. A second. Each drop falling more quickly, growing like an exponential function until finally the sky opened, releasing a deluge of rainwater as the light turned green.

We ran across the street, sandals clapping in the puddles forming beneath our feet.

Arriving on the other side of the intersection, we were soaked through and there were no signs of the rain and wind letting up. Still several blocks from the house and concerned about the potential for lightning, we ran.

Rounding the corner, the now deserted streets were flooding, unaccustomed and unprepared for rain. The floodwater rose above our ankles. Our feet punched holes in the growing lake, our sandals nearly pulling off with each step.

Then we saw a car on the otherwise empty street driving towards us. It stopped. “Get in!” The kind driver shouted in accented English, flinging the car door open.

Running towards the car, I paused and looked down. We were drenched. Not another single drop of water could have clung to our hair, bodies, or clothes without pushing another off.

I laughed, breathless, “It’s okay. Thank you, but save yourself!” And I slammed the car door shut.

The driver waved and drove off, understanding it was too late for us.

I laughed and looked up, mouth open, and started to dance in the rainstorm. It felt almost salacious, the two of us with our thin cotton clothes desperately clinging to our bodies, gleefully laughing together in the shower in the middle of the street of this modest Islamic city, water pouring over our bodies.

The sky growled of ominous thunder, and we skittered towards the house, laughing and splooshing in the building rainwater as we ran.

Flinging the iron gate open and running up the front steps, we arrived as a dripping puddle in the entrance.

This, I thought, is what acceptance feels like.

You Might As Well

There’s an old saying:

You can’t control the weather, so you might as well dance in the rain.

This saying feels almost corny until you actually feel it. It’s so cliche, I didn’t want to write this post.

But it’s viscerally true. You know it when you feel it deep in your body as water streams down your face and you stand in a growing puddle, laughter bubbling up inside.

How many times have you complained about the weather? Fretted about it ruining your special plans? Took it personally if it didn’t align with your preferences, your birthday? Hid indoors?

How many times was it something other than the weather that you complained about, even though it was equally out of your control? How many times has your mind spun worrying about the little and big things that were completely unaffected by all of your worrying?

Sure, plans to walk along the beach aren’t particularly important, so it’s easy to adapt when the weather shifts.

But what is important enough?

We’re one of 8.3 billion humans on a planet circling a sun that can fit 1.3 million earths inside it in a galaxy with 200 to 300 billion other stars. But your plans and preferences are surely important enough to ruin your day — the only day you have in your whole beautiful life — when the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Because the weather won’t cooperate.

At every moment, you have a choice.

Things can feel heavy and personal. You can let circumstances bum you out. Or you can accept reality, that which has already happened, that which cannot un-happen.

You might as well.

Because this moment is it. It’s all of your life. There is no past, but for your memories. And there is no future, but for your imagination.

In this moment, the only moment you will ever have, decide. Even if it means you’re corny and cliched. Go and dance in the rain.

Subscribe to Watering Your Garden

Handcrafted musings, personal event invites, and heartfelt tools guiding you back to the beauty within you? It’s a little something different in your inbox.

Subscribe to the Watering Your Garden newsletter and cultivate an intentional life through each rhythm of the year.

Sign me up!

Image credits, in order: Brian on Pixabay, Marcos Rivas and Christopher Campbell on Unsplash, and Hansuan Fabregas on Pixabay. Thank you.