I dissolve here. I always did. Remembering long walks as a teenager among the dripping trees of the bosjes, the silences of pillowed damp land, ferns and bushes brambling over clay and sand, mushrooms sprouting in front of eyes, a faerie-land mystic paradise.
For a moment today, a clear sky. I grab my sweatshirt and shoes and run outside, and then, a break of drops on my head. I head to the bos, the 'forrest', near my home. A 6 kilometer jaunt around the man made lake left over from the creation of this polder, reclaimed from the sea in the 1960's. Yes, the land I live on has only been above ground 50 years, and is quick to show its watery face.
The downpour starts about 1 km in to the walk, but the paths that wander all of Holland through trees, along canals, have a life of their own. The drops change as they filter through the canopy. They condense or disperse and make music as they pummel me. A splash of thunder, a quickening pace, I watch the sky dissolve again right in front of my face.
A student today reminded me of a cloud experiment conducted in schools. A small layer of water in a big jar... sealed except for gusts of air projected in... at one point the molecules can not resist, and they burst into cloudy formation, scattering the jar's sides with misty droplets. This is a lot like these low lands... trapping water, trapping air, sending it up, bringing it back again. At one point, I can't tell where the drips begin. The trees have their own language of storm and whispering wind, the paths and canals, another rhythm.
By kilometer 5, the downpour was complete with thunder claps and lightning streaks. The multiple waterway storms whipping around me... and in it, serenity. The trees lifting tall trunks to meet the chaos and calamity. Their limbs open and welcoming, swaying effortlessly.
Can I meet the storms of my own life so beautifully?
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