After The Storm
Living in SoCal, rainstorms are few and far between. The other night we had a rare doozy! Freezing cold rain poured down all night long. Lightning flashed. Thunder clapped. Then Dawn broke. Mister Sun smiled down. The flags and cushions and plants went back out. The forecast said the storm had passed. It hadn’t. Damnit, the patio got wasted and flooded.
The lid on my bucket of potting soil had fallen off. I got some potting mud now. The rain or the wind had ripped down the flags. The sail canopy went wild. The patio furniture cushions were soaking-wet gross or flown away. Then he caught my eye. Aw crap!
Poor Patio Buddha. His planter-world had over-flowed, and most of the custom soil mix had been swirled, twirled and tossed. It looked like his whole-planter-world had been destroyed. The cool little shells found on my last beach trip gone. The significant pieces of wood I collected and knew the back-story for each lost. The colorful tiny rocks that had found their way into my pockets from who-knows-where vanished.
I then paused and took a closer look. The plants were so shiny and healthy. And not dislodged at all. And Patio Buddha was standing there. Just smiling, like always. Had his little bag over his shoulder. Still headed East, towards the setting sun. His three companions still at his rear guard. Sure, the soil was scattered. The knickknacks knocked and knicked. But Patio Buddha was marching on.
Patio Buddha was still on path, on point, on purpose. His surroundings had changed, to put it mildly. He had survived a blistering winter rain and a wicked winter wind. Flags had come down. Chairs had overturned. Cushions had blown away. Clean-up would last the better part of half a day or less. I will sweep up the soil. I will gather up the assorted curios. I will tidy up his planter-world.
And he will stand there and smile. And stay perfectly calm and stoic. And keep on marching. He spoke to me in that moment. I heard his voice in my head. It was loud and soothing, at the same time. It made me want to walk-away and sit-down, at the same time. It was conflict amid chaos. It was depressingly likable and instantly contemptible.
And it reached down deep to touch something. And ended up pulling something out. I am still trying to figure out what that was. It moved my emotions strongly, but without effect.
We cannot control the storms that rage about us. We can only control the storms within us. All of us have storms raging, all the time, inside and out. We take the out and stuff it inside. And we grab what is inside and throw it out. And we blame shame and deny.
Let’s quit that way. Let’s control the controllables and let the rain pour down my back and the wind blow off my chest. Like Patio Buddha. The voice had pulled out my self-loathing. In its place was left a sense of one. I am one. The past is an outer storm. The future is an outer storm. The present is an inner storm. And the present is the ONLY thing that we control.
Be like Patio Buddha.
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