It's the Small Things in Life....

The clouds are thick in the sky today. As I drove in, I could see the streaky sunrise frozen in its tracks, the heaviness of the clouds taking over the sky. The wind is howling through any cracks it can find in windows and doors. It's going to be a stormy day.

As I said yesterday, aside from snow, there's nothing I love more about being in the Midwest than those thunderstorms. They build up, slowly and steadily. In the summer, they come after days of opressive heat and humidity that make you feel as though you're being pushed to the ground with the pressure. The clouds roll in, covering the sky with a thick canvas of grey and then, from afar, a rumble interrupts the day. The first few rumbles of thunder are usually so far away that you wonder if you really heard them or if it was something else, an airplane perhaps.

Then the storms gets closer, rain begins to scatter onto the ground, the rumbles get louder and the storm suddenly overhead. The rain begins to pelt down, furiously. The thunder turns to a crash overhead, the lighting so quick and sudden that your eyes take in its bright aftermath rather than the lighting flash itself.

I could see those clouds rolling in this morning. The wind is already blowing fairly hard. The temperature is positively balmy outside. On my drive, I was in the middle of town. There are a set of railway tracks that intersect the road at one point. The car in front of me suddenly slowed for no obvious reason. Then I saw them, five deer, running, one by one across the road. They were being aided by a good citizen, who must have found them in his yard and he managed to get traffic to stop so the deer could tear across the road, unharmed. I think they were following the railroad tracks but I can't be sure. I can only hope they get to their destination safely.

It made me wonder if those deer knew something about the storm. It reminded me of those cartoons in which at the first sound of thunder, the cartoon animals of the woods and forest make for cover to sit out the storm. Maybe those deer know that we're in for a tumultous day.

I like a bit of turmolt in my weather. As I said yesterday, there are some days where you feel like you're running in place and you just want something to happen. It's almost like I want to throw the elements that make up my normal day into the air to have them scatter like those pick-up-sticks that we used to play with as kids. I don't want the elements to change but maybe to rearrange, to make something new out of something old.

I don't suppose I really need a storm for that. I could do that any day, if I wanted. It's just that some days, there's comfort in the ordinary. Other days, the ordinary almost makes you feel imprisoned. I've always been a big supporter if finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. For me, today, it was those deer. I've seen them a few times in the field behind my apartment since the last time I blogged about deer. Yet there's definitely something special when they interrupt such a normal part of my routine. Like the squirrel yesterday, those deer today made me pause for a moment in appreciation. That was a moment that I ordinarily would have been stuck in my normal routine of driving to work, listening to whatever CD I fumbled into the player and already thinking about what to make for dinner.

As goes the saying, "It's the small things in life that make it worthwhile." I agree with that wholeheartedly. On a bad day, it's the friends who take the time out to talk to you that make it a better day. It's the fact that I can call my mother any time and she'll always listen to me complain or feel blue and she never tells me to suck it up and shut up. It's things like the fact that I always have McCain Smiles frozen potatoes in my freezer and they make my day just a little better because they're so goofy (and tasty) or watching a Harry Potter movie can take me away from life for a while. It's seeing a squirrel unswervingly scurry across a telephone wire or deer that cross my path in the morning that make a day something more than ordinary.

It's a thunderstorm crackling overhead that reminds us that afterwards, there'll be calm but, for now, there's the spectacular show of weather to enjoy. The little things add up....we just have to stop to appreciate them.

Happy Wednesday.