Senses

There was a moment when the car was dark and quiet. We were driving through moonlit sandstone landscapes that reflected the silvery light off their wet, shiny surfaces. The distance held flashes of lightning that were so far off there was nothing terrible in its thunder, only beauty. The soft sounds of rain hitting the windshield accompanied by the gentle smell of rain reminded me how incapable I am. It was a moment when my eyes weren’t big enough to take in all the beauty and my ears weren’t big enough for the sound and my lungs couldn’t breathe deep enough to store the smell of wet rocks. I was reading lines from a book I am learning to love. And I remembered all the moments like these that I keep in the most protected part of my heart. I was grateful for the dark, and for flashes of lighting, for convenience stores, and raindrops, for silhouettes, for the way Mom shoves her laptop between the front seats for a makeshift movie screen, for lightning, and most of all for eyes that remind me how much I love.