Sultry August day

A storm just blew past. It chugged down from the Catawba Valley, skirting the mountains, unleashing its fury in batches as it neared my house.

Rain struck the windows like a million fingers tapping for entry. Thunder angrily told me that the humidity and heat had reached a boiling point. Lightning tumbled across the sky like a million mean pixies hellbent on vengeance.

I huddled by the window, taking it all in. Within moments the weather cleared and the rain stopped, but not before it dumped a 1/4 inch in my rain gauge.

Moments ago, I stepped outside to get a better view of a doe and her fawn and almost gasped at the temperature change. At 11:30 a.m. when I looked at temperature gauge it said 112 degrees in the sun.

Now it's a pleasant, if slightly damp, 75 degrees.

I wonder if it will heat back up and do it all again.

Today I gave myself permission to stop worrying for a while. I have worried since May 1 pretty much nonstop. What would I do to replace my main client? What about our income? How will I get the house my mother left me rented back out when no one seems to want it? How can it be that I am 46 years old and yet again having to reinvent myself? What are my goals? What is my passion? Do I even have a passion? Would it be enough just to be my husband's wife, and nothing else? What else do I need? What do I want? How can I go after something when I don't even know what the something is?

At least for the morning, I ditched all of those questions. I plunked myself down in front of my old computer, which still works but not like it once did, and played Dungeon Siege. It's an old game and I'd played it before but it had been so long I scarcely remembered it. I'd been playing it in small time increments for a few days prior; this morning into lunch time it was an hours-long marathon of hacking and slashing my way through lava terrors and something called a slek in hopes of gaining the ultimate gamer's victory - the screen that says "you win" and then the game credits. The absorption was such that those worries went the way of the evildoers in the Kingdom of Ehb. Everything was in little bitty pieces and seemed much less threatening that way.

My lunch of chicken salad and the tomato from my garden tastes a lot better when it isn't tainted with concern.

Ah, the sun returns. The wet grass is actually starting to steam as it heats up. It's 2:15 p.m., and the day still has many hours.

I think today I will be the husband's wife, and go and tend the laundry.