the hesitant rain, or the Beloved at play ...

i looked up at the sky and i saw the clouds are so gray and thick.  even the sunbeams are getting difficulty piercing them.  i instinctively knew they are pregnant with accumulated water.  The promise of rain.  January had started on a hot mode and the rains will be a welcome respite.  a mischievous, elated smile formed on my lips.  i am about to water my wife's garden.  she had requested that i take care of her cherished plants while she's away.  i agreed of course but such additional task takes some precious personal time which I could use for my other pursuits like reading blog posts of internet friends or writing a blog post of my own.  so this impending rain will be a great help indeed!  i'll have some more free time.  and so I confidently tucked away the water hose and slipped back inside the house.  i grabbed my daughter's ukulele and started to capture the notes for one of my favorite jazz standards, Misty.

i am in the midst of my ukulele version of Misty when the rains started to drop.  here we go, i told myself and the plants, enjoy the rains.  they came, the raindrops, heavy and big, plopping down on my rooftop and on the plants' leaves.  but, wonder of wonders, like a short burst of gunfire, the rains stopped!  so sudden, so abrupt, roughly two minutes, and it's gone.  even the pregnant clouds overhead were gone, the grayness faded.  the Sun, that's nowhere before, is flaunting her silvery beams again.  the sunbeams speared me thru the window.  the birds, which somehow scampered away during the gray spell, we're back, twittering incessantly, with their own version of Bird Misty.  I shook my head in disbelief and went out back to my wife's garden.  I grabbed the water hose and sprayed the plants with water.  there was a promise of rain but the rain reneged on its promise for some reason.  I have to fulfill it.  

back inside the house, i looked at the ukulele which i left on the sofa.  the urge to play Misty is no longer in me. the Infinite, the Beloved, Life had played with me again.  I realized it is not just me.  i believe many others had experienced this -- 

when one is so confident that everything is right in one's corner of the Universe, that what one expects to happen will happen, especially when the tell-tale signs are there; then, all of a sudden, without any warnings, the expectation did not come to pass, and one is left befuddled, bewildered, momentarily lost --

times like these, i realized one should not demand an explanation from the Beloved, from the Infinite.  one should just surrender, and, make an honest effort to make things right and good again in one's corner of the Universe ... 

the Beloved is at play ...

i picked up the ukulele and cradled it in my arms, like a newborn child, i closed my eyes and hummed Misty,

the urge to capture it on the uke came back and my fingers amateurishly danced on its fretboard and tapped the notes, dropping like the droplets of the hesitant rain ...

http://youtu.be/d6np1zhRar0