Movement

I've been drinking in the smell of summer rain tonight. It's one of my very favorite smells. I could hardly make myself move off the steps in my back yard, but the rain finally drove my inside after I took several long, soulful breaths. Tonight the rain smells like tears and my heart is crying even if my eyes haven't yet. My friend Teresa is moving to Georgia tomorrow and I have been bottling up the emotion of it for weeks. I've known in my mind that she was going for quite a while. We've been on the "last time" lookout for months, but it always seemed so far away. All along I've been sure that at the last minute something would happen and she and her husband would end up staying. I'm very good at denial.

But today the movers started marching their things out of their house and tonight as we sat on her patio drinking wine and watching the lights twinkle over Utah Lake I finally understood that she was leaving. I wondered out loud if I would eventually know the people who move into her house when she leaves, but I can't imagine that I would want to. The place that has been such a peaceful and welcoming retreat for me over the last year really has nothing to do with that house and I can't imagine seeing it without her there.

Sometime soon I will write about Teresa and what her sparkling friendship means to me. Tonight I'm standing in a puddle and trying not to get my heart too wet.