Hey, good to see you again. Sit back, kick your shoes off and enjoy the story.

Clatter, clatter, clatter, thump. Silence. Clatter, clatter, clatter, thump again.

It sounded like quite a storm raging outside. I wondered how the plants in the garden were faring.

Rattle, rattle, bang.

The shutters on the window were protesting against the gusts.

The wind was really blowing out there. I rolled over again in my bed. I had just set a new tree and some pampas grass in my yard the past week and I hoped they were holding up against the onslaught.

It had been very warm that day and the storm had started brewing in the hot, moist air. It had begun in the afternoon with harmless looking clouds collecting on the horizon like the members of an audience waiting for a performance to begin. At first they waited good-naturedly, their numbers imperceptibly increasing and their mood still quite pleasant. But by late afternoon they had begun to get dark and impatient; shoving rudely at each other to get a good spot, crowding out the blue sky.  Their commotion and unrest stirred up a brisk wind which brought the prickle of electrically charged air in its wake.

I knew we were in for a doozy.  

By midnight the wind was howling; working its fingers into every crack and crevice of the house, testing if there were any loose boards or shingles it could break off and steal away. It wound its way through the trees and bushes, pushing the branches back and forth, gleefully sending loose leaves off through the night, just to pile them together, perhaps against some forgotten fence at the edge of the woods.

The rain assaulted the widows, worked into a frenzy by the wind. I could hear it pounding down onto the glass roof of the porch, offended because it couldn’t get in. I closed my eyes and slipped off into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

In the morning I woke to sunshine streaming in the window and clean, washed air filling the room. I got out of bed, pulled on some shorts and went down to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and go outside to assess the situation.

It was a mess. The storm had thoughtlessly dumped sticks, leaves, branches and assorted light garden furniture from the neighbors all over the yard. I threw a glance at the house and was relieved to see that there was only minimal damage; one shingle from the roof was gone, presumably to be found later in the neighbor’s yard.

I went over to the plants I had set to see how they looked.

The tree had broken; it had snapped in two, despite the thickness of its trunk and the supports I had set. The wind had been too much for it and although it had looked strong and stable, it hadn’t been able to withstand the pressure.
Not so the pampas grass. It was waving merrily in the soft breeze. The storm had lashed out at it, as it had at the tree, and yet it had simply bent with the wind and had allowed the storm its game, knowing that tomorrow would bring another day. 

Its flexibility had allowed it to dance with the wind and endure the crisis.

This ability to bend with the wind and remain flexible in even the most unfavorable of conditions is the key to surviving every storm or crisis. Being strong and stable as a tree can be a wonderful thing, but when the wind starts howling around you, remember the flexibility of the pampas grass. It may not look as spectacular as a tree, but when all is said and done, it’s still waving happily in the sun, looking forward to another day.

Happy storming,
Lisa

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