Gray Days

When we talk about spring we usually focus on flowers and sun-warmed breezes. We tend to forget the gray days. Days like yesterday when the sky was the color of aluminum and the wind had an icy edge to it. Days like today when the clouds are low and it’s drizzling rain and there’s a general gloom outdoors. Even my neighbor’s hedge of forsythia seems to have a dreary cast this morning. The weather forecast calls for thunderstorms and perhaps the falling barometric pressure is partly responsible for my gray mood.

Sometimes gray days are just days we have to get through. It’s best to settle down and ride them out. But sometimes they can offer us new and unexpected perspectives. The rain nourishes and charges the soil with nutrients for fledgling plants. Thunderstorms remind us that we’re vulnerable to forces beyond our control. Life is not sustained by sunshine alone.

This time of year our back yard is graced by a forsythia bush. It’s overgrown and unpruned and some might call it unsightly, but I like the graceful disorder of its branches. Sunday afternoon I stood awhile and watched the wind blow through the forsythia. The long shoots bent and rose in a kind of supple dance. The blossoms shook, but did not collapse; they did not let go. Though I’m fond of taking still pictures with my camera, I was reminded that nothing is static, nothing is still, least of all life. There are sunny days and windy days and gray days and we can bear them all. If our spirits are supple enough to dance.