First Rain

First rain is early this year. We had a thunderstorm late Friday night, lightening, thunder, then the rain. And today we walked out the door to run errands and that amazing smell was all around - water in the air, the first drops on warm pavement. It reminds me of the Jersey Shore, the warm rain, it smells like summer. Even though here it means fall is coming.

I like an early first rain. Quell the fires, let softness come home, light some candles, take a nap, may we get enough water for the season, may the crops get their drink, may the earth be calmed.

Living in California my whole life, rain is always a blessing, something I'm grateful for, something we can't control but hope that we get.

Little baby girl is moving well. I keep feeling a little knee or elbow passing on my left side, and it makes me so happy. I'm practicing visualizations fo the birth, how each "birthing wave" as we will call them, will bring me closer to her, I imagine holding her, it swells my heart. And then a few hours later I have a surge of missing my boy so deeply. At this point the two births are walking together, parallel paths, both full of love, such a deeply bonding experience between mama and baby.

It is a very intense time for me, these last weeks before Lima comes, walking a tightrope of trust over a big empty unknown. That is how it feels. Most of me knows she will be in my arms soon, easily, and we will wonder at her.

The early first rain is a good sign, of home, of peace, of the heavens coming down softly to meet us.