Monsoon season

The world feels soggy.

I don't dig complaining about the weather.  Natural systems do what they need to do & generally, we're best served by just gratefully acknowledging.  So I'm working to trust that all this rain is necessary and that a humid, sticky world is the one in which I should currently live.

The garden is a bonanza.  The mosquitoes might take over the world.  There is endless green.

My hands stick to the staircase railings.  I've repeatedly cleaned the floor and yet it still feels gummy.  My clothes won't dry on the indoor rack & we've elected to not own a dryer.

Everything smells musty.

So here I sit, saturated.  The storms have kept me home more than usual.  For that, I'm grateful.  I've felt tired and have at times been genuinely soothed by the relentless, pounding rain.  The ground is so inundated that there have been flash flood warnings for days.  When I have had to drive, a few times I've been caught in sudden storms.  My visibility disappeared while sheets of rain flooded the windshield.  Road lanes became lakes.  It was scary.

Now I'm cautious.  Having been caught twice now I've stayed home a few times.  The storms are so localized that I've seen them impact greatly one neighborhood while a zip-code away stays dry.

It's as though South Jersey has been transplanted to the Caribbean, or Southeast Asia.

What are the rituals in monsoon season?  I remember my semester in Cuba.  I could set my watch by the afternoon aguaceros.  I'd dash into a cafe and wait while the sidewalks steamed.  When I'm my best self I rush indoor plants out to the nutritious rain and often pause and allow myself to receive the same.

I've emptied rain barrels and drained out the greywater.  I want to feel fresh but instead I feel steamy, sweaty, and always slightly unclean.

I invite in the wind.  I invite in the thunder.  I invite in movement.  I invite in what is needed.  I invite in my own soggy impatience.  I invite in grey skies and thick clouds and heaviness.  I invite in.  I receive.