Happy New Year

From my balcony, right now, Pohnpei is epically beautiful. It's raining. Hard. The wind (howling, howling like a mad dog or a caged wolf) is cutting slivers of water and moving them across the surface of the river--but there are no whitecaps, just nimble waves. No little white horses darting past, just an undulating blue field. The clouds are a soft blue, not grey--varying tints of denim blue, the shading reveals cumulus edges, scalloped like a party dress. Even the mountains, small and humble and majestic, are navy. A minute ago, I could see a sliver of pink sky behind the peaks; a layer of cloud lifted, revealing the sunset that might have been.

And now, barely five minutes after I began to write, the scene has changed. The wind is silent; the water is still; the rain has moved on. Once again, I can hear the swish of the fan and the rustle of papers on my cluttered bed (which is serving, temporarily, as my desk). It's almost dark now. That storm (perhaps the third one today) seemed like daylight's final hoo-rah before succumbing to evening. Gotta get in one more sucker punch, said the sun. Or maybe the storm was the night's way of easing the transition: bring on those clouds before I bring out the moon, hide the sun's face while I fetch the new guy. Although he's only a mirror, he sure is a looker.