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It has rained and rained and rained.
"It's going to get better," Bill says.
"That's what Noah said," I reply.
But I am grateful for the rain.
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Aitch-too-oh
By Helen Kelley
It has rained and rained and rained. For one week now, every day, a deluge of rain has fallen from the sky. Bill likes to stand in the window watching the monsoon as it cascades down.
"It's going to get better, " he says.
"That's what Noah said," I reply.
On the back table is a long list of things I plan to do when and if the sun ever comes out.
- Plant the pansies.
- Spray waterproofing solution on my raincoat.
- Scrub the mud off the kitchen floor.
- Photograph the quilt that I have just finished.
- Take the red fabrics from my stash out into the natural sunlight so I can sort and choose the roses and the rubies for the next quilt that I am arranging on the floor.
- Wander around the neighborhood with my camera and discover what miracles with lovely new leaves and bright blossoms have sprung from the sodden earth.
- Air the bed quilts.
- Celebrate.
When the sun comes out, I will open the windows and breathe in the scents of the season, the lilac fragrances and the hints of fresh-mown grass. I will stand behind the house and watch the bedraggled robins and their new families that have huddled in their drenched nests built up behind the downspout by the corner of my workroom--when the sun comes out.
At this moment, another squall is shaking the window. I pull my circle of lights closer around me as I am working. A stormy day is the time for finishing things, and my stack of unfinished projects is piled on the worktable beside me. Today, I am making a friendship block for a wedding quilt, and I am tacking down the last unstitched areas on a quilt that my needlework group is making for a hospice. I shall bind off a little miniquilt that has languished on my table, nearly done, for some time. I have a collection of scraps that need sorting and folding and putting away, and when that is done, I shall vacuum up all those squiggly threads and bent pins that have strewn themselves across my workroom floor.
When the rains subsided, old Noah stood on the deck of his ship as it began to settle back onto the earth. He sent out a dove to see if it would return with a fresh, new leaf in its beak as a signal that the water was going away and life was beginning to reappear. While he looked at the sky, he saw a rainbow that promised him that the floods were indeed over. I stand here and look out of the window as the rain begins to ease. Piled beneath the panes are the rainbow colors of my projects, glowing in the gray light of the last rainstorm.
This has been a wet, endless spell of weather, but I am grateful because I realize that without the rain, I would be drowning in unfinished projects. In this soggy weather, raindrop by raindrop and stitch by stitch, I am completing my bits of work and putting my life back in order. Moment by moment and project by project, I am accumulating sanity and satisfaction.
When my family was young and the children and I were shut inside the house on rainy days, I used to recite that old poem about "little drops of water making a mighty ocean, " and sing songs about April showers and "Singing in the Rain," and the children would say, "Mom, you are such a Pollyanna."
I suppose I am. But once I have pulled myself out of my rainy-day funk and reconsidered all the rewards of quiet confinement, I find myself free to enjoy the promise of those rainbow colors radiating through the dullness of this wet, wonderful weather.
©HK 2004
Helen Kelley is a quiltmaker, lecturer, author, and teacher from Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit Helen on the Internet at her website www.helenkelley-patchworks.com or email Helen at this address: helen@helenkelley-patchworks.com.
Helen's book Every Quilt Tells a Story: A Quilter's Stash of Wit and Wisdom is a collection of two decades of Loose Threads. Now in its second printing, the book is available at quilt shops, bookstores, or from us at https://secure.tpli.com/VillageQuiltShoppe/QV_Products.asp. Helen will be signing copies of her book at our Primedia booth at the International Quilt Festival, October 30 through November 2, 2003, in Houston, Texas.
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