rain

This morning I arrived to the train stop with a twelve minute wait. I had a momentary inner-dialog wishing the wait time was shorter. After all, it was pouring down, sideways rain. The thought came and went with no germination—I noticed it and let it go. My cell phone battery was drained forbidding me a tool to pacify myself with so, I found a spot and stood quietly until the train arrived. A few minutes later, a woman dressed in designer clothes, walked up to the stop audibly complaining. She complained about her umbrella, the rain and the nine minutes she had to wait for the train. She was so vocal I thought she was talking to someone else. Her complaining continued on and offered me the chance to practice non-judgment.

I couldn’t help, though, calling up thoughts of my soul friend who, within the last few days, said her last thought-provoking sentence. I thought about her in the recliner in her living room surrounded by her husband and children as each day, now hour, draws her closer to her last breath. I thought about the less than three weeks she had to prepare for her death… how quickly she went from investigating horrible stomach pains to hospice.

I thought about how much she loves the rain and how she might roll her eyes at the woman announcing all the things of which she does not approve. I thought of the conversation we might have, as we have so many times before, about the hyper-distraction mode most for us are in and how we lose the present moment when we can’t make peace with what is.

In thinking of my beloved friend, I became aware of the wind kissing my cheeks and the dance it shared with my hair. I recognized remarkable emotion in the sky and felt the air move into my lungs as if each breath were the most important breath of my life. I imagined the poem my friend would choose to accompany this scene—something so perfect it would most certainly give me chills. In this waiting time, I became conscious to the moment. A fleeting consciousness, as they all are, but something I may not have had the train arrived earlier or if I spent energy focusing on the displeased woman.