Our Lady of Perpetual Astonishment

Awake at 6AM again. It could be jetlag, or the restless cat who sqwaks as I stumble to pee. (Toilet paper in the toilet, deliberately now. We flush toilet paper here.) Back in my mother’s bed I tuck into sheets that were pale blue last night. The dawn would probably be coloring my cozy world grey even without the pattering rain, but there is water falling from clouds out there. I wonder how long it has been just as I notice the birds singing. Morning is morning and it is come, from so many voices. The pushy cat purrs under my sleepy hand. She is content as long as my fingers are moving through her fur. Outside in the weather, the small North American leaves are as excitable now as yesterday they had been in the morning breeze. Everything outside is playing a “telephone” game of song and dance. My favorite, the chickadee, I imagine may sing more and harder than the rest. She is brave, a resilient little thing who doesn’t mind inclement weather; she is a year-round kind of bold. This pattering is gentle at best, hardly a downpour. Perhaps the birds and leaves love this weather most, like a watering can beneath which they perform while bathing. The cat rests. The sun persists. As the sheets adopt their blue again, I consider something hackneyed, something about not avoiding the storm, about dancing in the rain, a life motto. I remember a childhood of learning from excitable leaves, of listening to relentless birds. I have come round the world. Again, and my backyard still holds lessons. The rain has settled now. The leaves dance still, shining, as the birds chatter on. Everything undaunted, everything alive.