It appeared as if the sun had risen from beyond the clouds as the rain still fell upon me. It wasn’t heavy, but it wasn’t light, I was drenched in what could have once been lake water, bathing water, or pool water. The sun began to shine brightly in the midst of the impending darkness. In the middle of the thunderstorm that seemed as if it were raging on forever, I take a deep breath and try to become one with the wind. As I lay on my back in the tall grass in an empty field, I look at what surrounds me. I see an old oak tree withering in the fall. It’s years have graced itself with roots that might even reach me below the ground, with leaves that have fallen a million times over again. I see the old oak tree as something cautious of its surroundings, cautious of humans, like me, to cut it down. Next to the tree lies a swing set. Swaying back and forth, the rustiness of the nails squeak as if a child were playing on it. Back and forth, back and forth, the abandoned swingset goes, hopeful of once again being sat upon. A few feet away from where I lay, I see a small patch of three leaf clovers, maybe four if God graces us with such luck. It’s as if the four leaf clover hidden amongst the other three leaf clovers was ashamed of being different, ashamed of being found.
I close my eyes, and I become the rain. I am tears falling from the heavens, and I am sad. I take a breath, and I become the sun, shining from behind the clouds. I am jealous of the lightning stealing my thunder, of the rain taking over my reign. I shift my hands from behind my head, and I become the oak tree. I am cautious of being hurt, becoming old, dying. I straighten my legs, and I become the swingset. I want nothing more than freedom, nothing more than desire, I want nothing more than to be hopeful that someone will come play with me. I open my eyes, and I become the four leaf clover. I hide myself away in between those who all look similar to me, but I am still different. I am still ashamed. I stand up, and I become myself. I am happy. I am happy because I am me, and I can feel, and I can touch, and I can become. I am happy, because I can be. I am happy because I tell myself I am.
“Rain on me!” I scream to the heavens. “Pour yourself onto me, frighten me with your nature!” And there I stand in the trees and in the field in the ashen gray sky that has seen hundreds of years before me. My echo sending waves of sounds in front of me.
I am drenched and wet but I am not afraid. I run forward and my auburn hair traces the wind, becoming one with it. My tattered shoes and worn clothes are stained, not with water, but with tears and years and memories. I am home, I think, I am safe. The sunshower is still occurring, still raging, still pouring itself onto my skin, its raindrops sticking to my scarred arms. I am dancing in the sunshine and I am dancing in the rain. How odd is it that I can do this? How odd is it that I can finally see the beauty that created me.
“Scare me! Show me what you’re made of! I know you’re listening!” I yell. My youthful skinny body trying to gain attention of something not alive with thoughts, but alive with creation. I am trying to conceive the impossible, all I need is a sign. I need to see that I am here and that I am now.
I fall back down to the ground and I begin to fill my own body, my own Earth, with tears. I am alone and surrounded by nature and I am crying to four leaf clovers and wishfully trying to become a swingset. I am yearning for a sign from God and crying out to nature, to the gray sky, to the sun, all in hope of being created anew. I am in search of a new beginning, I am in search of being found.
I am now on my knees, and the grass comes up and surrounds me. I am enveloped in an unmowed field, and nature is finally accepting me. I raise my green eyes to the sky as natures teardrops imitate my own. I lift my arms up and I cry out, and I scream, and I yell.
“Please! Please! Let me escape! Let me live on without problems, without heartache. Let me live with my only fear being that I run out of ways to be too happy!” This time nature answers my sought out requests. This time, nature claims another victim.
A single lightning bolt rains down from the clouds and strikes me through my chest. I can feel the rush, the power, the light inside of me. It pulses through my veins, through my heart, through my legs and through my mind. I then begin to crumble, every part of me falling to dust and combining with the dirt, becoming one with the nature, finally.
From my ashes I rise, recreated and simplified. My once auburn hair now blooms with the graciousness of a small red flower. My legs sprouting out of the ground like a meerkat exploring the outside of his home. I am new, beautiful, perfect. And from my petals hatch an egg with a beautiful blue jay in it. The blue jay with the deep azure of a hot summer’s day, fell dark in the rain that surrounded it. Escaping this field, this rain, this sun, I watch as the blue jay spread its wings and flies. Past the swings, past the oak tree, past the clover patch, and past the clouds, the blue jay frees itself from the field, it frees itself from where I lay dormant in my new body. It flies through the smell of rain and the light of thunder, and I knew that the blue jay is watching me the whole journey. As the blue jay disappears from my vision, I know that it is feeling what I am feeling and because I am happy, the blue jay is too. In my newfound birth, I had created life, and finally, I am now whole with nature, with Earth. I can still feel the ground, I can still see the sun, I can still smell the rain, I can still hear the wind, and I can still be. And everything that surrounds me, in the midst of the sun and in the midst of the rain, can still be.