Rain, Rain, Go Away! Come Again Some Other Day…

It’s been a long hard cold rain today. The rain here in the San Francisco Bay Area is much different than the rowdy and cantankerous rainstorms of south Texas (where I grew up).  The rain here is gentle and lingers long…for days even. Back in Texas you can see the storms rolling in, cause a ruckus for a few hours, and then move on elsewhere.

I saw a family of earthworms flailing around in a puddle in the parking lot (how funny…I just decided that it was a family. One big, one medium, and two small. No idea what constitutes a worm family really, but I’m thinking this was pretty darn close). So, this family of worms had been displaced from the ground by the influx of rainwater, and there they were just squirming around on the rough concrete. When the rain goes away and sun comes up, they are stuck and needless to say it usually doesn’t end well for them.

I picked them up, one squirmy gooey worm at a time, and put them back in the grass. I then saw about a dozen more by the time I got to my car in the parking lot.  I thought, “Geez, I can’t save all of them! Why bother!” Yeah, I know…. In amidst of tsunamis, earthquakes, and tornados, I worry about the worms. I realized how happy it made me to tap back into that innocent way of thinking. “I can’t save them all, but it will make a difference to THIS  worm." I miss that feeling --knowing that you did something good; Even one tiny little good thing-- just being content with that and loving yourself because of it. And also being aware that just doing something that comes from a place of joy and happiness is better than doing nothing at all. It’s easy to feel hopeless and defeated looking at all the worms flailing around in the parking lot.

I think of my best friend’s daughter (my mini-BFF, ya dig?)  who is learning to read. Looking at the whole book is super overwhelming and I can imagine that it’s easy to not even want to bother trying… but one word at a time will get you there.

Patience, hope, love, and perseverance…. don't let the rain wash them away. Hold on to them tight.