Weathering

Gray skies, wet ground, droopy trees,
all bearing witness to the rain that fell here last night.
The sense is sad, melancholy, even heavy
as if not just rain fell from the sky.
Dreams perhaps.
Shattered upon landing.
Broken into a million tiny shards,
too tiny, too fractured to ever be repaired.
Will I walk the dogs today?
Likely not.
This is the kind of day
that finds me wanting to curl up by a fireplace
with a good book or a catalog
to dream new dreams.
To buy this, make that, go there.
Restorative dreams.
I need days like this this,
days when I can shift gears,
move into a new vision of my life,
find a way to fit the me that is
into the possibility of a me that could be
somehow greater.
Smarter, maybe. Or kinder.
Not some silly pop-psychology new me
but the old me improved.
Finding a rough corner that could be
gently sanded
so as not to cut so deeply
into the hearts of others.
Or perhaps a mental limp
repaired
with new mental muscle
built around it
that I might not lean so
in one direction or another.
Stability.
Not huge, dramatic changes.
No LOSE 20 POUNDS IN TWO WEEKS
claim.
Not LEARN HOW TO SELL ANYTHING
TO ANYONE IN SIX EASY LESSONS.
No, not those.
Quieter changes, more subtle.
Perhaps none but me will notice.
But after many of these
gray-toned days,
decades of them now,
the me that is emerging is somehow
both stronger and softer.
And if I could show you
the girl of twenty-five,
brash and brittle,
heedless and often thoughtless,
then you'd see.
She did change you'd say.
A BRAND NEW PERSON IN
FOUR EASY - DECADES.
Not lessons or weeks of course.
These are not the changes that come
with either speed or ease.
Like last night's rain
gently wearing away rock
in such slow and tiny increments
that none will notice
the change taking place before them.
Inevitable, these changes;
and so much gentler when one
has learned to let them be.
It's a gray day, heavy even.