I love rainy days in the Dark Corner………days when it’s twilight from morning till night. For those are the days we steal away from the world. Those are the days when we rock on the porch, listening to the rain patter on the rooftop and hear the water rushing over the rock waterfalls below. These are the days when we catch up with each other, say whatever comes to mind, or simply rock in comfortable silence. These are the days when we know we have the world all to ourselves because no one’s coming up the mountain in the dark pelting rain.
These are our days of quiet intimacy.
So we sipped champagne mimosas and rocked and talked and laughed and played 50’s on 5. And danced barefoot on the porch. In and out of the rain. We splashed up to WordSplash’s porch and sat there for a while….letting the cool mist drift over us on that open porch. We were groundhogs with lots of different holes to run up and down and round-about. We were grownup children again………simply loving life and each other.
And later, drifting back out to the porch, rain now a gentle mizzling rather than a roaring downpour—that’s when I spied it! white butterfly wings nodding over the stair rail heading down to the river. My heart skipped a beat and I ran barefooted to see if it was what I thought—and hoped—it would be. For I’ve been watching and waiting and checking the green bud pods daily, watching them swell into separate little tippy-points full of hidden promise and that wondrous delicious transportive spicy scent that is a Ginger Lily in full and luscious bloom.
Ahhhhh…what a blessing to an already blessed and glorious day! What a gift….and what a surprise. And yet it was a surprise I’d been anticipating and dreaming of for a full long year. A passalong plant from two dear friends, dug up from their garden on the day after their wedding and plopped, full of mud, wrapped in newspapers, in the trunk of our jeep. As Jane Austen would say, “I knew how it would be!” But I had to wait for it…I had to watch and hope and peep and yearn for it….so that when it did finally burst into creamy white bloom, its scent reaching me first in the damp misty air—Oh Yes, indeed…I knew how it would be!
And then, knowing that others were on their scented way into bloom, in the bed beside the screened porch, I reached out and SNIPPED that first lovely flower! So now, I’m gift-wrapped in spiciness…..both coming and going. Inside and out. In the soft summer rain. On this enchanted…and bedazzling…afternoon.
Views from Annie's Cabin 
Love your story, feel like I was on your deck. Great post!
Sent from my iPad
Love this, Anne!
I finished reading and listened – expecting to hear the drizzle of rain. Marvelous, Dr. Blythe.
And I posted it to fb! It works! Well done.
I am just now reading this, Anne, and it is lovely. Thank you for transporting me to such a beautiful place in time.