Silver lining…

Sometimes out of nowhere the clouds seem to come tumbling in all at once.

They tumbled in this weekend, a combination of all sorts that I prefer not to talk about in detail, but for a while things got very stormy, almost to the point of no return. Big, black, brooding clouds that suddenly opened up into some terrible weather.

My sky is rarely clear. I wish it wasn’t so, but I’m not one of those lucky people who seem to be surrounded by blue sky and the few clouds that do appear for them are mostly small, white, and fluffy. There are always dark clouds threatening on my horizon. I’ve often wondered why, how my bad weather started.

I’ve been in some bad weather for a while now. Oh, I have an occasional sunny spell - but most of the time things are overcast, grey, rain on the way or already arrived. The storms have become more frequent, gales practically the norm, and the squalls are almost constant - their clouds scudding across my horizon. Yes, my general synopsis is generally falling rapidly, visibility poor, moderate to rough, occasionally gale force 8, variable later – so, not the best of forecasts. Oh, I’ll come through it eventually I expect. Don't they say that every cloud has a silver lining?

Looking out across to sea I saw the storm approaching - big black clouds in the distance, the thin line of blue overhead disappearing rapidly as the front rushed at me. Sea, deep blue to black, and relatively still. The calm before a storm maybe? The sky continuing to darken as it enclosed the wide horizon and made it smaller. That’s the thing with storms, they draw you inside, diminish you - make you smaller and less full size. Storms take away control, whipping you into their frenzy, toss you around until you become a part of them and you can’t stop. You’re in a loop. You want to break out but you can’t, you’re stuck.

Laughter. Sometimes that does it. Laughter and the so-meant-to-be-angry gesture cautiously tossed onto the thick pile of the rug so as not to break and spill. Yes, laugh! The storm is gone.

Above the quickly changing sea a ball of rainbow light appears. It hangs gently for a minute or two shimmering in the distance and glowing from an internal source it lightens, shade on shade, through to white before fading completely. It isn’t a rainbow – there is no bow, simply a ball. Perhaps - after all, a silver lining.

A silver lining? I’ll keep my weather eye open, who knows when I'll need one again.