A Straight Line

It has rained all week! Wonderful. I love the rain. I love the sound the rain makes as it falls. I love the feel of the rain in the air. I love the way that the rain makes the air smell clean and fresh. I loved to walk in the rain, when I could walk. I used to lift my face to the sky so I could feel the drops on my skin.

Yesterday I had to drive to the doctor for a follow up visit and as the rain splashed on my windshield I was filled with a longing to pull the car over and start walking. The longing was so strong that I almost let desire overwhelm my common sense. Pulling the car over wouldn't have been the problem. I could do that easily enough. The stumper was I can't walk! Walking is from the 'once upon a time' realm. Now I have wheels. Sitting in the rain, no matter how much one loves rain, is another matter altogether. Sitting in the rain means that a lake forms in your lap. A cold lake! that dribbles down your legs and soaks your feet. That wouldn't have given me the sense of freedom that I was yearing for; wet pants and soaked feet weren't going to do it for me. So I kept driving in a straight line.

As I tried to come to terms with the suddeness of the discontent I was feeling a big Harley pulled in front of me. OMG! My emotions really started flying all over the place. At that particular time I would have given just about anything to yell at the man astride that big bike and beg him to let me ride behind him. I wanted to feel the rain, the wind, the speed, and the abandon. The freedom to feel free. Instead I kept driving in a straight line.

When I was two weeks overdue with my son I took a long walk in the rain trying to start his descent into the world. I was huge, he weighed 10 lbs 6oz and was 23" long when he was born, and walking wasn't easy. I couldn't see my feet over my belly, but the rain hit my face, and the smell of the earth rejuvenated my spirit. That walk didn't work. He still refused to come into the world without a surgeon's knife, but I remember that walk in the rain as the sweetest time that my husband and I ever spent together. Rain = rejuvention of the spirit and freshness

My father had a Harley when I was a pre-teen. It was a beautiful, big, black, machine. I have been in love with them ever since. My mother rode behind my father when she was six months pregant with my youngest brother. Her doctor saw her on that ride and called her at home that night. He laughed at the memory of her on the back of the bike with her big belly, but admonished her for taking such risks. She didn't ride with my dad again until the baby was born.

My uncle, 'the beautiful', had a Harley. He was a blonde, movie star handsome, young man. God he was beautiful to look at. He and I would ride on that bike all over the beach cities. The women would stop in their stride to watch him. I used to imagine that they were all jealous of me, and enjoyed the wind in my face that much more. We stopped riding together when he met the woman that would turn his world upside down. Harley's = the sense of freedom, speed, fun, and abandon!

The rain, the ride, the wind, the freedom! I thought about all of those as I kept driving in the straight line. All those feelings churning inside me. All those 'I wish I could's'. I kept driving in the straight line.

Sometimes life feels like I have always driven in the straight line to where I am supposed to be instead of pulling off to the side to do what I yearn for at the moment. Despite all of my restlessness and yearnings for what 'once was' and what 'once might have been' I kept my appointment at the end of the straight line. I may have gone into the doctor's office with a heavy, restless heart, but I was met with a smiling face and a flu shot!!!! She said that she had calculated so that all of her patients suffering with immune deficiency complications would have protection against serious winter illness. Sometimes a straight line will explain itself to you if you take it to the end.