Relief

 Last evening we turned off the a.c., opened the slider and all the windows, and listened to the rain drumming on the leaves. After more than a week of exceedingly high temperatures and poor air quality brought an unscheduled, and unprecedented seven day stretch off the bike, Kay swirled some wind, clouds and rain our way, and brought some relief. That pungent, after-rain scent was pulled from the ground, the stalks and stems, fallen leaves, even from the rocks, and saturated the air, breathing new life into seasoned, dry lungs.

Kay continued to swirl her clouds around the next morning, as if they were a fancy skirt, folds shifting minute by minute, and curve by sinuous curve of trail. A playful, teasing display; there would be no more rain, and no voices would be raise in complaint against the clouds coving the sky through the length of the day.