This is the sort of morning which holds promise for a beautiful day to come. The early morning air has that coolness which only lasts only a short while and mostly on summer mornings. The breeze can’t make up its mind between strong wind or calm breeze. The sky stays blue.

I will have a deck day. My deck has been transformed. Yesterday it was cleared by two amazingly wonderful people. They had heard my lament about my debris filled deck. One is my friend and neighbor while the other is her friend but who went to the school where I taught at the time and remembered me. I swear my deck is calling my name.

When I was a kid, no yards had decks or even patios. My dad used to bring the barbecue out of the cellar each time he used it. He’d put it on the patch of sparse grass near the clothes lines. No grass ever grew there. It was in the right angle formed by the walkway meeting the paved clothes line square.

Of late, my dance card has had only a few entries. Two were doctors’ appointments, but I don’t count those. I did have a uke lesson, and that made me happy. The rest of the card is blank, but I’m okay with that. It gives my leg and foot more time to rest and heal. I’ll read, the best way to spend time.

When I was a kid, I had a bulletin board in my room. The board was fuzzy pink in a silver frame. It hung near my bedroom door. On it were pins, invitations, pictures and more pieces of my life. When I was in Ghana, my parents moved but dragged along my bulletin board. They gave it back to me when I bought my house. I cleared it and bought a clean, new board for my new house. The board is here in the den. It has my sloth calendar, ID’s on lanyards from a variety of events I attended, a couple of invitations to long ago events, a picture of much of the family in Colorado and other odds and ends. I can trace a part of my life with each of these. Some connect to one another. Others celebrate one time events like graduations. A couple of pins are still on the board, a peace sign pin and a patch from Peace Corps. The board is almost full. I’m thinking it is a metaphor of my life.

I don’t know what time it was, but the three of us, the two dogs and I, were awakened by rolling thunder off in the distance. As the thunder moved closer and closer, it got louder and louder until one clap, the loudest of all, cracked right over the house. Nala raised her head so I talked to her and patted her so she was fine. Henry didn’t seem to mind. The thunder brought the rain, a heavy, pounding rain against the house and windows, and that was the last thing I heard before I fell back to sleep. Today will be hot, 77˚, but it is only 68˚right now and damp and cloudy. The air feels close. Nothing is moving. The clouds will stay around or at least some of them will. The sun won’t make an appearance. She will be missed.

When I was a kid, I loved riding my bike after a rainstorm. I’d ride through the biggest puddles, always the ones closest to the curb, and watch the waves rise on each side of my bike. As I rode through, I’d lift my feet off the pedals and spread wide my legs hoping not to get too wet, but in the scheme of things, I never really minded wet sneakers.

Sometimes, when the rain was especially gentle, I’d stay outside. I always thought the rain was glorious. I’d spread my arms and spin. My clothes would get wet, but wet always dried.

My first rainy season in Ghana was amazing. No rain had fallen in months. Nothing had grown. The fields were empty. All the stalks of millet and corn had been burned away at the end of the rainy season. Everything was dry. The roads were dusty, and lorries were surrounded by trails of dust as they moved along the back roads. The market had only tomatoes and onions, but the market always had tomatoes and onions despite the season. I can still see in my mind’s eye the first rains, tremendous rains which flooded the hard, unpaved roads and made travel difficult, but the rain fell day after day, sometimes twice a day. The roads softened, and the fields were fit for planting. I could look beyond the wall of my house and see the farmers in the compounds behind me bending over, planting their seeds in rows. Outside the front gate of the school was another compound. That was where I saw the miracle, a bonafide miracle. Small, bright green shoots began to appear. Where there had been nothing was now filled with new growth. It was as if a wand had been passed over the fields and the crops had magically appeared.