rain leaf
Angry. I felt so angry. Anger infusing my steps, the steps coming faster, with greater intensity, into the puddles, splashing and soaking my Teva straps so they rub uncomfortably against my feet.
Thinking of the computer on the table in Beulah Tallulah, the trusty and valiant VW Eurovan, where the window coverings were not adequately secured, I began to run in the downpour. My dog, Bud, interpreted this as a game, one where he leaps into the puddles, races to the end of the leash, pulls me off balance, and repeats. Anger increasing. Increasing.
It was nearing the end of two weeks of traveling alone. Alone with Bud, and the wider world, so not entirely alone, but alone enough. Today I considered how few had been my conversations since leaving home, and how many of those few had been with Bud.
I looked at Bud across from me, lying on the bench seat of BT, stretched out, peaceful. Only in our animal companions do we find one so accommodating to our needs and desires. The day of intermittent Ohio rain had kept us inside our rolling shelter with me fixated on the work before me on the electronic screen and Bud left to sleep and stare and wonder when his next walk would come.
Seeing what I perceived to be a break in the rain, I determined Bud and I would chance a walk to the park lake a half-mile or more from our campsite, with the small digital Canon in hand for taking images. Easier to manage this little device in one hand while Bud danced on the end of his leash on the other than it was to attempt carrying my 35 mm.
We strolled. Me taking shots. Him sniffing everything within reach. The rain teased and ebbed as we walked, but my glances to the sky assured me we were safe from a drenching as we continued to explore, to question, to wonder, to sniff.
Then it came. The downpour. Sprinkles that led to drops that turned into buckets of water, fast, hard, unrelenting. We were far from our home base. The torrents of rain came as suddenly as my anger. My anger at a natural occurrence. Anger at a situation I could do nothing about. Hot, sticky anger like bees swarming.
I began to run. Run to save the laptop. Run to prevent the inside of home from a soaking. Running, the intensity of my anger increased and I became acutely aware of its presence. Anger at the rain, at the soggy, sodden cotton clothing hanging off me, at Bud for playing in the rain, at myself for not adequately zipping up before setting off. Rich and full and transparent.
Arriving back at the van, all was well. The expensive computer and the hard drive of photos and the seats and the table and the clothes and the towels and…everything. Dry.
The beauty of the experience reveals itself as I stand inside my traveling home, dripping on the floor and inhaling the smell of wet dog. I was a clear and present witness to my anger arising. Out of nothingness, into nothingness, as it has so many times in my life. Anger created in my mind to protect me from that which one cannot be guarded against; to empower when power has not been subsumed; to frighten others when the only one frightened in the end was me. Anger raised and engaged for all the wrong reasons. To avoid feeling deeply, to armor the heart, to bury the soul away from perceived harm.
I was a witness. And I laughed.
“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
