Thoughts after a rain

This evening I walked home from work in air warm and moist from a thunder shower. Lilacs lavished fragrance on the neighborhood and foggy gray clouds edged a clean blue sky. After the rain, the world felt like dawn or like being forgiven.

Whether I realize it or not, I live a life awash in mercy. Before work today, I tied my head in a purple kerchief and traipsed to the grocery store, patting myself on the back for treading so nonchalantly beside four busy lanes of traffic.On my way back, I took the steep, elbow-like stairs which lead pedestrians up an embankment. At the top, I met a surprisingly open vista. Railroad tracks cleared the landscape and led into a tree lined distance. A dirty patch of ground clumped by uncut grasses broadened the open space on my side of the tracks. The widened vision touched my soul. And coming toward me, clipping over the dirty path, came a little old lady with her hair protected by the clear plastic hood common to grandmas on rainy or windy days. A little band-aide covered a bit of her cheek and her eyes shone as she exclaimed to me, "You use this way, too!"

We congratulated each other for a moment on the fittingness of this route to the grocery store and parted cheerily.