It would take a half hour to walk to Louise’s. I wanted to drink more Amaranth tea, to restore my faith. Where I was now, outside of a dream or vision, it seemed the only way.
I stepped out into the drear and trudged through the shower, a great waterfall that drenched me at each step. And yet it showed care, like a small light shining in a dark room.
Facing traffic, I walked along the highway’s edge. The only light came from behind, taller and wider than my body, and so it would not disappear until I had crossed enough ground to make it vanish.
I thought of going through the deep trees that lined the highway but their branches had thorns and sprung out at all angles, and held no clear space for me to walk.
The storm was only the ocean reversed, after all, and like that same gloaming at the folds of the earth it had a place in my dimension. Like the cradle of the waves, it could sustain me, and moving through its endless drape I sought the sea, and the Amaranth.
I had started out in the rain with the Amaranth as my beacon, and yet the force of the water amended its singularity. Here in the storm I had found my home; why should anything else be required? I could bear the hail that had begun, how it minced my arm flesh and salted my tongue. The dredging water could spirit away my shoes and leave my feet vulnerable to rushing stone and concrete; I could lose ground and fall, flat on my face into the flood, and fear being swept into the deluge; all of these difficulties could abound and yet I would remain steadfast and loyal in my commitment. I accepted the storm, and lived within it.
When the world unfolds itself to us, readily, heartily, it is like being invited into the home of the divine. Every past action we have taken, no matter its quality, was the perfect one. My experience of the storm had been etched by every early morning and receding dusk, my grasp of a hand, branch, and pencil; by each forgotten conversation, my first walk and word, and infant’s sleep. The storm had cleaved through the un-navigable terrain of memory: distinct outlines eluded, but I could sense the shapes of things, and caress them.
I sang to myself, the same song I had sung to baby Grace, who now felt as immediate as my own lung or heart. Delivering her on the shore, I had known exactly what to do. Bearing witness to birth had illumined all knowledge of my own. Every new birth implies all those which have come before.
