The weather. That topic. It has been strange lately. The forecast was for 3 inches of rain. Did it mention high winds? Shall we say HIGH winds. And LOTS of rain. This is fall. Dry season.

So the rivers flooded. Trees toppled. Power went out in pockets everywhere.

But not here. Unusually, I was fine. I might not have paid attention if I hadn’t gone out and not been able to reach the town nearby. Or if my daughter in Maine hadn’t phoned to say her power was out along with all the power in the area, including stop lights. That trees were hanging on downed power lines.

The good luck: Nika and her husband are coming to stay with me until they get power again in four days. I’m thrilled. Yay!

The outside world, how can it manage sometimes to so readily match the internal? I was having my own “bad weather” inside. It was not limited to one day. It was on and off for a while now. It was not high winds, but kind of a damp valley swamp brew. The way to handle such weather was to be uncomfortably sluggish. Well, uncomfortable because I didn’t know myself as sluggish.

But after a while – it seemed like a LONG while, sluggish became less bad. More okay. Am I really saying that? I would not have dreamed I could admit to slow and easy. But, pinch me – I went through a week of NO exercise. Meditating, sleeping long hours… Completely low-key. And lived to tell.

My art, my reading, my home : they all benefitted. My dear mind suffered – “This is not how I know myself.” I was not loving the swampiness. Until I noticed, even my darn mind was settling down. Feeling content, possibly?

Then Nika called.