Everything looks different now.<\/p>\n
The sun has found a hiding place between pewter clouds and the birds forget how to sing. I can barely see through the sheet of mist coming over the hill, it’s shroud darkening the world as far as the eye can see. I am not prepared for this. I am not yet strong enough to survive such torrents, but I must. Surrounded by thousands of kin, but more alone than ever reminds me of how small I am, how I am but one blade of grass.<\/p>\n
If I could reach into the sky and pull out the sun, I would, but I’m restrained by my earthly tether. Never reaching farther than my outstretched arms. Never protected from the world’s worst. I wish at least the birds would sing, carry a tune through the solemn weather to remind me of brighter days. But they have all gone. I don’t blame them–I envy their freedom, their ability to leave at will. That is a luxury I was not afforded, and instead I must stay and welcome the rains. Standing in the vast field,\u00a0 the unrelenting wave approaches. Gaining ground, coming closer.<\/p>\n
Bracing for the worst, I cling to myself, holding tight to where my roots have planted me. Winds thrash me against my neighbors, but no one seems to notice we’re in this together. Each one of us is alone, an army of individuals. So we sway about, letting the wind beat us down as the first droplets fall from the sky. They are not soft and gentle, but like hundreds of stones crushing you one-by-one. I take the pain in stride, nimbly twisting my way around whatever I can but the rain still hits me. Over and over until I fall limp upon the ground.<\/p>\n
The kind thing would be to let up, for the rain to move on and shower it’s vengeance upon someone else, but it remains. The torture intensifies and suddenly I am choking. Drowning. Each second passes like an eternity, the weight of the rain holding me down, clouding my once bright view of the world. In the brief moments of relief, I cannot stand. I am bruised and torn, unable to regain the strength I felt in spring. So instead I stay low, waiting out the storm, knowing one day the sun will return and the birds will sing again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Everything looks different now. The sun has found a hiding place between pewter clouds and the birds forget how to sing. I can barely see through the sheet of mist coming over the hill, it’s shroud darkening the world as far as the eye can see. I am not prepared for this. I am not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,37,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-weather","category-writers-sketch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YHlB-gq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rachelhorwitz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}