Parking Lot Ballet

It's late. I should be so, so asleep right now. But there was a moment singing to my heart and I needed to share it.

The weather today was so bad that all the words I find to describe it are German, words like schreckig and furchtbar. Words that mean the trees were technicolor and the sky made a dark portal to another dimension and our customers staggered in wind-battered and wet.

When I got off work, the sun was long set, and it was still raining. I hugged the closing cashier goodbye, pulled on my sweater, and walked outside.

It was beautiful, everything black and slick and puddled and water falling. At first I ran to make sure a car wouldn't hit me, to make sure a kidnapper wouldn't grab me. But then there was nothing between me and my car, and I realized I didn't care if I got wet. The asphalt was bright with wet, the air was bright with wet, water fell from the sky and I wanted to dance.

I did soft-shoe, badly. I leaped over puddles, half-gracefully. And then, I leaped too fast and too far because I'd reached The Paraclete (my car) and it was too soon. I hesitated by the door, till I realized what I feared was looking silly. I tossed the fear into the slish, and scurried back to the streetlight.

I'm not a ballet dancer. I'm a grateful student. Over and over, I am lectured to stop jerking from motion to motion, to stop focusing on trying to be perfect, to have fun. My teacher has told me to stop finding, and fall.

In the wet parkinglot, under the lights, the last little distance to my car, I got to dance. I wasn't perfect. Maybe I wasn't graceful. But I stopped finding, and fell.

And maybe that's what wet expanses of parking lot are for: for using the little strength I have, and learning to trust God so I can fall.

[Wrote this late at night and forget. Saved it so I could make sure it wasn't awful in the morning. Now I can post.]