When I told Kinya I'd be going for a walk, he must've thought I was crazy to do so in this weather--no; by now, he knows I'm a little funny upstairs at times and doesn't ask why I do some of the things I do. I donned a raincoat and a hat; grabbed an umbrella plus my trusty camera; glanced at my watch; and went.
I wasn't disappointed either. Crystalline adornments on otherwise plain, unattractive wildlife made me realize how very pretty water droplets are. I felt irresistibly drawn to take a photograph of this flower in the rain...and a few minutes down the path, of this bud.pics: dripping wet flower; butter bud
There were other things in the rain I couldn't have seen any other way. The snail, for example. But it was so yucky, I didn't get a picture of it (when I realized, that is, what that moving gooey stuff was)...but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't have. Taken a picture, that is. Snails probably come out only when it rains, and I won't have many opportunities to photograph them. But who wants to photograph snails, anyway?
A little ways down, I saw several bushes of candied snow...well, flowers that looked like white, hardened sugar. Some of the branches were bare, where the wind and rain had lopped off some of the blossoms, and they had fallen to the earth. But the sugar-frosted carpet formed this way made it even prettier to look at!pics: candied snow; fallen snow
On the way home, I noticed by the side of the path, near the fence, a yellow blossom...that "butter" bud I'd seen earlier would soon look like this! I had a strange urge to call back to that bud, tell it to be patient, and it would be beautiful someday. I lay down my umbrella--it had stopped raining--and had to practically lie down on the pavement to get a shot of this flower.pic: I call it "Buttercheese Burst"...don't you think that's what it looks like?
I thought about some of the things I had seen. Some beauty can only be realized in the rain of adversity.... We can wait with expectant hope: one day, for sure, blossoming would come.... Hm; this walk was much more fun than I had thought it would be when I first set out on it. I could tell you more about the lone orchid in my in-laws' yard nextdoor, about the bead of water on a leaf, about the red-stemmed "Japanese maple" plant, about the...
But one thing I absolutely cannot forget to tell you: when almost home, I heard the familiar singing of the Japanese bush warbler singing his heart out again (April 27 post). This bird's song is beautiful, but the singer itself is so hard to spot! I was ecstatic to finally see one alight the antennae on a neighbor's roof, even more ecstatic to get a recording of the chirping. A neighbor had just come home from shopping and was backing the car into the garage; I was afraid that the noise would drive the bird away. But it sang lustily for me, even longer than the time it took to park the car and turn off the engine. Yes, I want to be able to sing like that too, to keep on praising God.
pic: The うぐいす, or Japanese bush warbler. Sorry I couldn't get you a better pic!I glanced at my watch again. It had been over an hour! I didn't want Kinya to think I had gone out in a dark mood and wasn't coming back, so I ended my day's walk and hurried home. The sun had come out by then too.
