Lovely Day

 It's a soft and lovely day here in California, just like it was twenty-some years ago, when I got married.  You never know what you'll get in October, but we got lucky.  How could we not? That year, it had rained for at least two of the previous weekends in October, clearing during the week and the clouds returning each weekend.  Normally, I would have loved this, but a big part of our reception was outside and we had no contingency plan.  We woke to pearl grey skies that cleared to big white fluffy clouds.  It was not hot, nor was it cold.  It was perfect.

That more than twenty years have passed since that day is hard to believe.  That my love and I are together to celebrate another round of the year is a gift beyond measure.  So many blessings have filled the last two decades.  So many things I never could have imagined.  People gone.  New people born.  The warp and weft of family.  The children, growing so fast!  The dogs and cats.  The years when it seemed alarmingly repetitive--another Christmas program, another festival at the parish--that surprisingly came to a stop.

The rain that year was a harbinger of a wet and wild winter, that comes seldom to California but when it does, it really does.  Those rains are drenching and healing, refilling reservoirs, sweeping the hills south of us with poppies, turning every other hill emerald.  I hope that's the case this year, but we'll need to wait and see, I guess.