Rainy Afternoon Musings

It started pouring rain this afternoon, washing the air from the smoke of burning rice stubble. Down in the fields I can still see the fires burning, but we can’t smell them anymore.

It’s odd to have rain in cold season, and I’m reveling in it.

The two oldest kids are off to Bangkok with Aaron to renew their passports. The Girl cried pitifully all last night and all this morning as I helped her to dress and take her things out to our friend’s truck, waiting to give them a ride to the bus station. She has done this for a year and a half, cried at every parting, preferred to stay home beside me, even if it means missing out on something fun. I didn’t even finish writing her birthday letter last year, though I wrote many paragraphs and struggled over it, because we were in the thick of this anxiety she was going through, not even wanting to go on outings with Beema if I wasn’t going, and I couldn’t figure out how to talk about it.

I’m still not sure I understand. But she was fine within an hour of getting on the bus. I’ve learned not to talk to her on the phone during these separations. It makes her cry all over again. But she can have loads of fun if she manages to forget that her default mode is sad without mommy.

So Little and BamBam and I have been having a quiet day at home, preparing for the upcoming birthday celebrations this week. My hand hurts from cutting flowers out of paper egg cartons for decorations.

Candles, and tea, and a good book, always seem like an appropriate way to celebrate and savor a rainy day.

I love rain. Something about it makes me feel more alive, and more at home than other types of weather, except maybe snow storms. No snowstorms on the horizon here in Thailand, even though the middle east is getting freakish weather. It’s a good thing actually. If it snowed here so many people would suffer.

I feel like I’ve forgotten how to blog. I have thoughts, that I plan to turn into posts, but days turn into weeks and I never seem to find the minutes I need to write those things down. Things happen slowly here, there are fewer ways to mark the flowing away of time under the bridge and so one doesn’t notice how swiftly it is passing until there is something to watch that is carried along in it’s current.

The year is almost over. How did that happen? That seems to have come up way too fast.

Life is good, life is full, time keeps slipping away, like the rain pouring off of my roof. But it will soften the earth where I’m wanting to plant some seeds, and help their growth.