Rain on Asparagus

Last night the sky dropped over three inches of rain, and the beads of water left glittering blanket over the plants in the garden. All but a few tufts of asparagus have been cleared from the beds to make way for spinach sprouts and cool season crops. Crouching over the plant trying to get my camera to focus on a select few tiny globes required a stillness that I don’t find outside in the rest of the city. 

Sometimes guilt over having the of the luxury of stillness hits me. I feel unworthy of the quiet places I find and the time I make to dwell in them. But I think the only moments of these that are wasted are the ones where I refuse to listen, where I don’t allow the calm to soak in past my skin and into my soul.

There are battles of will in these walls where small discordance rapidly escalates to tears and screaming, and the heat and anger of the moment leaves my head spinning. The words and my voice betray the goodness and patience of my Father, and I’m left floored at my shortcomings and the fiery insolence in those two tiny male bodies I’ve been entrusted to grow into men. My own vocal cords burn with having been rattled to their limit after attempts at calm directives were matched with clenched fists and a red-faced “NO!” from the third carpeted stair.

If only I could usher in the peace of the garden into these walls. The more I think on it, the less it seems natural to try to live in harmony with three other willful, intelligent, stubborn people (like myself), in a less than 2,000 square foot space. I don’t think even a 10,000 square foot space would suffice because even as we clash and clamor, we are inexplicably drawn to each other like warm planets colliding into something with the playful warmth of a pile and puppies but with the bite of ash and rubble.

Before I know it, these little planets will burst like rockets from this house’s foundation, fueled by the fire and love that lit them, and Joe and I will have that silence of a world where half the life has suddenly been stripped away and we have to learn what’s it’s like to carry a conversation where the only interruptions are the lack of interruptions, when we were used to dangling the ends of sentences in air to finish once requests for milk were done.

Fall will be ushered in, once again, in blankets of cool, glittering beads, and all it’s eerie and soothing silence will embrace us as our fingers curl like leaves into and around each other’s.