What the rain already knows
Learning to trust that what is good doesn’t need to be complicated to be true
Last week, with summer in full swing, I watched the clouds turn gray, and then charcoal, anticipating a storm late for it’s arrival. The garden waited with open hands, ready to receive a drink from the darkening sky. Hoping for some reprieve on seemingly endless dry days, I stopped to rest on our newly roofed back porch. There is a point when summer throws down a surprise attack, leaving the idea of spring in the distant past.
Somewhere in the middle of these oscillating hot and sensible days, we had gone without a drop of rain for weeks. I watched eagerly as the promise of relief both for the ground and for my sweat-soaked skin hovered in sight.
Earlier that day, I had gone through my typical morning ritual. A warm washcloth, a spritz of hydrosol, and a thin layer of oil to cleanse my face. I slid my contacts into each eye, burning slightly from whatever was in the summer air. The ritual is nothing if not simple.
There was a time when it wasn’t that way. A recent text message reminded me of that distance. “Does anyone have a clean facial moisturizer that they love?”
A few years ago, I’d be overrun with passion about the topic of clean ingredients. Years of research, trial and error, keeping up with the latest internet “expert”. Replies from our friend group came in quick. Lists, preferences, brand names. It didn’t take long for our friend to shift from curious to skeptical. What is clean? Who says so? How can you tell?
I held back my response, drifting into memories where a similar irritation filled my spirit. I remember days of browsing the aisles, wondering what brand of face wash met the requirements of the current trend. Hours spent under buzzing fluorescent lights as I turn over every item. The faint twinge of a bright screen scanning labels. One package after another, deciphering a code of chemicals on the back of a bottle.
I bought a composter and tried turning my food scraps into soil that would feed my tiny container garden, though I barely grew a single veggie. The balcony was north-facing and butted up to a conventional farm field. I had no idea that most plants would wither under those conditions, but experimentation is one of my stronger traits. Swarming fruit flies, the scent of rotting food, and bees that made a home inside the wall behind my composter became my new norm.
Still, I was determined. Plastic was a four letter word and in it’s place was DIY household and skincare products. Everything reusable. A few months worth of trash that fit into a pint sized mason jar. A source for perfectly curated grains. Driving miles to buy local, organic, grass-fed.
Adrenaline eventually turned to exhaustion as I paddled against the current of an entrenched culture. Everywhere I turned was another thing that needed to be considered. Toothpaste. Laundry detergent. Candles. Deodorant. Receipts. Dental floss. The coating on nonstick pans. Next thing I know, it’s 10:30pm and my laptop has eight tabs open. One article recommends hemp shower liners and another says linen. A third implies that mold is a greater threat than the plastic itself.
That same anxiety lay under the surface as I pulled into Whole Foods one afternoon. Shopping carts rattled across the pavement while I watched a woman load a case of La Croix into the hatch of her Subaru. Last time we were here, G put a bundle of asparagus in the cart and you would’ve thought he committed a felony. That’s from Mexico! No sooner than the words left my mouth, did I recognize, I had become a little too obsessive. He put the veggies back on the shelf with a look that let me know I may be a little off my rocker.
Now, back in the produce section, I put the Mexican grown asparagus in my cart, hoping if I take the sticker off, he won’t notice my hypocrisy. Cold air blasts my face as I reach for a container of yogurt that I couldn’t keep up on making myself. Condensation beading around the plastic of a familiar label reminding me how quickly ordinary things had become moral decisions.
As the text conversation continues, our friend asks: Isn’t the stress of trying to do it all toxic in and of itself?
Convicted. I’ve been the one who gets stressed about making her 9 p.m. bedtime. The one who skipped dinner with friends because the timing didn’t fit my fasting window. For years, I thought my own exhaustion was proof of my righteousness. I thought if I didn’t row harder, I would drown. But when the asparagus landed in my cart, I simply dropped the oars. I stopped paddling.
But the current didn’t sweep me away. It carried me to this patch of earth where I don’t have to manufacture life. Where I don’t have to force the bread to rise while I sleep, or demand the bees to produce their wax, or tell the sweet potatoes how to grasp the soil. Creation has its own rhythm, and it doesn’t require input from me.
I explain to my frustrated friend that after trying every “clean” product on the market, I ended up exclusively using sweet almond oil and it was one of the best decisions that I no longer have to think about. A single ingredient that soaks my skin in simplicity each morning before I head out into a complicated world.
The storm clouds finally surrendered to the heavy water hidden behind them. The sound came quick and loud against the new porch roof. I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. The stillness absorbing into my chest the way the dry soil drank the long awaited downpour. The rain came without my calling it forth. Without my screaming at the sky or paddling against the current. It just fell, right on time, and I am fully held by it.
