CALM BEFORE THE STORM

A gloomy and cloudy, gray morning is upon me today.  It feels like the calm before the storm.  As I step outside the cabin door the sulfury smell of the paper mill, thirty some odd miles to the east of us, permeates the air.  That's the way it's been all my life.  My Grandfather, who lived a mile south of me as the crow flies, always said in the 1960s, "I can smell the paper mill.  It's going to storm."

I hastily walk around the pond dike, dipping into the thick woods near the creek and nestle up against a big oak tree.

All around me are signs of those who were here before me, just days or weeks ago.  I notice two small maple trees rubbed by a buck's antlers and a large scrape on the ground not far away.  The regular whitetail gun deer season ended yesterday and the woods is quiet as it waits for the impending storm to arrive.

A few raindrops land on my journal...  and then stop, as if beckoning me to write faster.  I can occasionally hear in the distance the three birds that seem to follow me this time of year in our Wisconsin woods; crows, chickadees, and blue jays.  None of them are in sight.

I'm likening the weather today to my own mood.  I've just finished six months of chemotherapy, my second round of treatments.  Now I sit and wait... for a recurrence that will most likely come quicker than the last one.  I'm facing reality and my own "calm before the storm".

It's difficult trying to sort out the best way to cope and enjoy this time I've been given to the fullest.  Should I spend it gathering up firewood and stacking it up before the snow falls, or stashing acorns in every hollow tree like the squirrels, or maybe flying south like the trumpeter swans to avoid winter's snow and cold.

My breath is visible as the wind begins to pick up a little, but the rain and ice are waiting for me to finish writing in my journal.

I think I'll not worry about gathering firewood, stashing acorns, or getting rained on.  I believe I'll just keep sitting under this oak tree and allow myself to get soaked... and enjoy every minute of it!  It's just rain, on the last day of November in Wisconsin, and it's both frightening and exhilarating.

p.s.  I'm not saying Grandpa was wrong, but the rain never did come this morning!