Rainy Season

Today Grace gave me one of those hugs, you know, the kind where you bury your face into her hair and take a deep breath, where flashes of her babyhood run through your mind. It left me staggering back to washing the dishes with a drunk smile. Moments like these make up my daily life. A smattering of kisses and leg hugs in between washing the floor, or cleaning the bathroom or hanging up clothes.

The day-to-day routines have begun to grind a rut into the tile floors of the house. Its comforting. The other day we made Thanksgiving turkeys by tracing our hands and coloring them in traditional orange and brown--well Gracie’s is a psychedelic swirl of all the colors. I hung them up with pride, thinking, I can’t believe that its November, it feels like I’ve entered into a time warp where its continually August, hot and humid. It hit 90 degrees yesterday and the humidity was so thick you felt like you were walking in a cloud. Everyone knew the rain was coming but when…

Its rainy season here and the mud stuck to our shoes can prove it. Last night around 5 PM we decided to take a walk down to the nature preserve at the bottom of the hill. We started to walk down there with the girls loaded up in the stroller, Matthew threw the umbrella in just in case. About half way down we could see a massive rain cloud, about the size of Texas moving toward us. At the bottom of the hill, we could see the curtain of rain moving slowly up. As we sped down the hill, we questioned whether we should be doing this, but then, its been so hot all day, a little cooling down was in order. A light sprinkle started and then a torrent of downpours, coming in, sheet after sheet. Matt fumbled with the umbrella and put it over the entire stroller. The girls were dry, but we were soaked. We looked at the each other and laughed, enjoying the freedom of feeling the rain dance over our bodies. I looked back up the hill and there were a bunch of kids running into the middle of the street and laying in the newly formed river gushing downstream. The innocence of youth.

We made it to the preserve and trudged the stroller across the front area to a road that led out to a large palapa that over looked a dry lake. The mud was viscous and stuck to the stroller wheels, Matthew was wearing flip-flops and at the time I thought was a poor shoe choice, but given his short clean up time once we got home, I reconsidered as I scrubbed my running shoes. We essentially carried the stroller out to the palapa and we waited for the rain to stop. However, as we waited we feared that it may get dark before the rain ceased and we didn’t have our head lamps. I couldn’t bare the thought of dragging the girls across that road, which was becoming smaller and smaller as it melted into the side of the lake bed, in pitch darkness.

After a few minutes of heated debate on whether we should go or not, Maddie started to fuss. Great timing, kids always have the best timing. I reached down to give her a kiss and she latched onto my bottom lip and started sucking vigorously! I lifted up my shirt and latched her on my teat, grabbed the umbrella and yelled to Matt, “I’m crossing”. I starting walking her across the mud road, securing the umbrella close to us. I felt confident I wouldn’t fall. However, halfway through I became less confident when my foot slipped out and I swaggered, crossing leg over leg, until I finally got my balance. I looked down at Maddie, surely she was a scared as I, but she hadn’t missed a suck.

We made it across without falling into the lake and waited for Matthew and Gracie to do the same. I looked into the graying night, and waited. I started to get a bit worried, but then they appeared. Matthew dragging the stroller with Gracie manning it like a ships’ captain. We were safe onto the sand-compacted walking trails of the preserve. Gracie demanded to go home; “I’m soaked”, she said pathetically. “Okay, we’re on our way” we said.

We slowly walked up the hill, the rain did let up a bit, now it was misting. We turned the corner to our street and let out a sigh of relief. We were home, finally. And after three months of living in the Amazon, a hot shower felt great.