Primal, Primordial, Primaeval
We went for our walk today.
No, it was not raining…for three whole minutes! We had umbrellas with us, but halfway through, the wind began to blow, and it continued to rain.
So I shut my umbrella.
My husband looked at me questioningly (he is a man of few words: the other words, I supply). “Wind,” I told him exultantly. He struggled to understand why that necessitated shutting my umbrella despite the rain. Then he gave up. We have been married for 40 years, and he has begun to realize that I am harmless — most of the time. So, he “smiled the smile” that he reserved for such occasions and turned away.
But the rain beat down on my upturned face, and the wind tumbled my hair into wild disarray, water dripped into my shoes and I grinned from ear to ear.
In the Park, the trees stood with their heels dug in against the encroaching blasts of wind, and the more slender branches danced wildly. The wind picked up a tree at a time to play with and then rushed through all of them. I felt a laugh beginning in the soles of my feet, traveling up my spine, careening madly into my heart and erupting in my throat and behind my eyes in bubbles of mirth. I stood on the tips of my toes, lifted my arms, and swayed like the trees did while raindrops pattered on, splattered on, scattered on my face.
For a moment of my joyous life, I was Nature, and She was me: primal, primordial, primeval.
