Driving from Ogunquit, Maine to Albany, New York yesterday was one of our more uneventful and light-of-traffic trips in many years, but the closer we got to home, the cloudier and thicker the air looked. By the time we returned to Albany, the sky was a queasy sort of peach and gray, and when the sunlight could get through it landed in sickly shades of amber and salmon – the stuff of sunsets but much too early in the day for that to be a good thing. The lawns looked like the dried and desiccated stretches of August and early September, and everything felt like it was coated in dust and pollen and dangerous particulates.
Before unpacking most of our bags, I hopped back in the car and dropped off some food treats from Maine to my parents in Amsterdam. Along the Thruway, the sky looked even smokier – fires from Canada and all the rainless days conspired to create some very unhealthy air conditions. Back in upstate for just a few minutes, and I was already clamoring for the wet sea of relief that a rainy weekend in Maine had provided. Suddenly that rain felt very welcome.
I turned up Taylor Swift and tried to channel the happier parts of summer. When I got back home for the second time that day, the sky finally threatened rain with dark clouds and rumbles of thunder in the distance. Lightning flashed and a blessed blanket of rain began to fall. I walked up into the attic to hear the rain fall there. In the calm of a storm, I began my daily meditation, indulging in the return to home, the return to our regular schedule, and the return to life after the renewal of a vacation. More on that fun trip in later posts…
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