Alpha, Day, Omega

This morning, with the summons, I didn't have to report until 9:30. Since I'm usually at my office by 7:30, and the drive today would have been less than half as far, I had two hours to sleep in.

Of course, I slept rather poorly, but still it was pleasant to relax, at least.

It stayed dark in the house this morning. I was surprised when I woke at 7:30 to a clap of thunder, and it was not really light. The hail began very quickly; small and tinny-sounding hail, but there is no mistaking the sound.

Lolly came over, and I immediately invited her up on the bed. She doesn't get up with me very much at all anymore; perhaps a function of age. Perhaps partly owing to that blanket she loves so much ... or maybe she just feels safe, and prefers to protect *me* these days. But today she needed me, and was pleased to lie down with me on the bed. She had to settle a couple of times; ending up bum-to-my-belly, so her head was guarding the direction mine wasn't.

I don't have to do much soothing with Sidney anymore. When she and I were new, I often had to put conviction into her calming. "It will be okay, you are okay ..." But since we got new windows, since she grew to trust me, since she's just grown a bit older and less fearful, all she needs is a hand on her back somewhere.

And so I lay today, an arm flung up along her side, her belly under my wrist, my fingers on her ruff. It's a very fine thing to lie with a good dog, and feel her fearful cry-breaths turning into calm ones ... into rasping snores ... into peace ... into the sleep-sounds of dreams. She was gently bunny-kicking me in the soft spots, chasing rabbits in her oblivion. The warmth of her fur on the inside of my arm.

By the time it was time to actually get up (from 7:30 or so, we had a half an hour - and even then, getting up and getting ready were pretty leisurely paced), the rain had followed the hail, had died down itself, and the sky - no lighter - was at least emptier. When we walked, our heads, if not our feet, stayed dry.

By midday, it was bright and sunny, one of those days when "storm" becomes an unrecognizeable concept.

For a while.

Just after eight (regardless of what Blogger quasi-"thinks", it is now 8:49), the sound came in, and I went out. Sat on the back stoop in air grown cool again, and listened to the wind, the thunder. Huge swaths of the sky, just lighting up. The entire north, horizon-wide. Not as loud as the clap this morning. But, gently, inexorable.

I thought about the camellia I transplanted today (almost able to rip it out of the ground without a shovel). I never looked over at it, in the growing dark. I just looked up.

And now I sit, Siddy back up next to me. This time on the couch, up against me. Sitting up some, but more and more just lying against my leg. Warm, that fur. Sweetly stinky - it's been weeks now since she had that bath. And not trembling. Just needing me. As the day's omega storm moves southward ... and away, along with the day.