A Rain-Soaked Morning
I’ve been sitting next to a giant window looking out at the trees all morning long. From my perch, I’ve watched early morning glow shift to mid-morning brightness. It’s been raining consistently at varying strengths as I’ve watched it fall. Listening to the variations in sound between big and little raindrops. Other than steady rainfall and a slow chorus of chirping birds, there has barely been a sound.
Lately my head’s been busy. Jumbled. Not so much that I can’t keep things in life relatively organized, but enough that I can’t focus on the quiet when it’s right in front of me. Jumbled enough that even when I’m in a place where my mind usually wanders freely, it doesn’t. Instead of letting life’s most important questions dawdle through my thoughts on a run, I’m writing my next email and planning out my next few hours.
It’s fine, I’m not complaining. It’s just what happens sometimes. Especially when one thing is transitioning into another. When you’re standing with one foot already in the fall while still trying to enjoy the final stretch of summer. When you’ve already started on two other projects before wrapping up any of the other three already in progress.
It’s just how things go from time to time. And every so often, it’s nice to know I can have a lot going on and still not feel all that stressed about any of it. Every so often, I find myself in the middle of five books instead of two. With things to get done for seven different upcoming weekends. And more than two weeks worth of dirty laundry.
But right here, my mind isn’t focused on any of that. It’s wandering and exploring more important questions than daily tasks.
Just outside the window, a foot from where I sit, the rain falls rhythmically on drooping leaves. The trees outside look like a forest that goes on forever in every direction. There’s the quick descent of a hillside and a river not far away. Its location made clear not by sounds, but by the break in tree cover nearby. It’s a forest where time and place don’t seem to matter much at all.
The world I’m watching could belong right here, in the modern world that allows me to enjoy this rain-soaked morning from the comfort of a tiny wooden cabin with a ten-foot window. Or it could belong to another time, when the whole world was more wild and free. It’s not hard to picture a T-Rex crashing through the trees nearby. Probably because Jurassic Park is one of the five books I’m in the middle of, but still. It wouldn’t feel out of place.
And that’s one of the important questions. How tall would the T-Rex be if he was moving through the forest? Would the ground actually shake and would I feel him coming before the trees gave him away? How far away would I be able to see him? I see the branch I imagine his huge head coming into view just under as he makes his way up the hill. But would it break at chest height instead?
I don’t want the answer. I know I could Google it and quickly know the height of a T-Rex. But I don’t know the slope of the hill, so it wouldn’t help me with the visual anyway. But that’s why I like the question. Because even though it’s ridiculous, there’s more logic to it than one simple answer can give. It’s a question that brings more questions, more places the mind can wander.
