Storm (first published on Themestream)

I went out walking in a storm Tuesday.

It wasn't really deliberate. I had to get from point A, my new apartment, to point B, school, and I had no car.

So I set out from the apartment of my brand-new roommate and, not even pulling my jacket over my head, started for school.

The rain was falling hard and fast for Arizona. My short hair got wet and plastered itself to my head and face. I pushed it out of my eyes and walked on. I wore no socks with my sandals. The insides of my shoes got wet and my feet slid around. I started to feel more alive than I had in the past two weeks.

The wind swirled around, bending branches on the trees. My energy level, which had been at zero, began to tangibly build. I could see it. Instead of nervous
blue sparkles, as it had been for the past three months, my upper body glowed with an ice-pale yellow, the color I had been when I had first started out, six
or seven years ago. Below my solar plexus, I felt dark and solid. I was Air and Earth. I was alive.

I walked in that storm, smiling, face upturned to the rain, laughing with renewed joy in life. I was alive. I was loved.

I was myself again.