Rainy Day

I have had THE BEST DAY!!! I give an African-American focus tour at Middleton Place in Charleston most Sundays, and I typically dread heading out there on a day like today - that is to say, waking up to pounding, unrelenting rain, thunder, lightning, and - yay -tornado warnings.

Not only is it usually a waste of time to offer a tour in cold, wet weather, but every so often someone will show up for such a tour, appearing across the stormy landscape like the Grey Man, usually commenting, "Geez, ya shad see watits liyk up in Meshigan..."

So we walk and talk in weather worthy of a news channel truck and a wind-battered reporter, the visitor complaining of -what else? - the weather the whole time.

"Cad ya speed it up, hon? We dant have a nice hood to keep ahs dry lak you do..."

Today was not like that. The grounds were completely flooded by the time I got there, but I was prepared in my jeans, rain jacket (with a nice hood), and Timberlands. I stepped out of my car and straight into some mud, went to my waiting spot, and surveyed the land.

Not a trace of humanity was in sight.

I had brought a book along, figuring this would be the case, but the stormy light through the live oaks shone amber, birds were vocalizing, and the rest of the grand property was still.

So I changed my plans.

I grabbed my Diet Coke from the car and walked across the Greensward (fancy Middleton term for 'backyard') and into the Garden Market for a sandwich. I was soaked completely by the time I got there because it's a small hike across the grounds. The ladies working the Garden Market were alarmed at my appearance and said, "Oh, you're all wet!" Being waterlogged when I didn't have to be gave me immense pleasure for some reason, like I had broken a needless rule. So I smiled, ate my sandwich with my cold, wet jeans weighted on my legs, and then walked back across the boggy grass.

I sat on the porch of Eliza's house - a freedman's cottage named for its last resident - and waited for the storm to calm.

And once there was a clearing, I walked over to the sheep and immediately missed my daughters, even though I would see them in an hour or so. They absolutely love the sheep, and I always feel a little guilty visiting them without the girls.

Today they just stood there staring at me, chewing hay, looking like babies with their first handfuls of Cheerios, unaware that there's a proper way to do that. Every now and then one would bleat.

After a few minutes I moved on, jumping over mudpuddles, and trekked through the formal gardens and down towards the rice fields. White chairs remained from a wedding the day before, and the contrast of the French formal symmetry of the gardens and the pristine chair arrangements with the amoebic puddles beneath them and the splattering of mud on their legs made me smile and think of my rain-shaped, messy hair and how much I was enjoying it at the moment.

Sometimes you just have to succumb to what nature wants.

I reached the peak of the hill leading to the flooded rice field and galloped down, eager to spot alligators, like my kids always do. I know they spend these colder days burrowed into the banks, but there's always a chance. I thought I saw one, but it was only debris upon a closer look.

I then walked up to the chapel, my favorite spot on the property, and sat inside for a moment. It smells exactly like my grandparents' old mountain house in Burnsville, N.C. used to - just wood and paint.

I made one last visit to the sheep on my way out, because there's already been a lamb born this year, and I can't pass up a chance to see them. In doing so I nearly walked right into a surly peacock, so busy was I looking at the sheep.

There was another person at the corral by then, an old lady talking to the sheep, and I could easily have thought her crazy if I hadn't been doing the same thing not long before. Other than the Garden Market ladies, she was the only sign of human life I encountered out there today, and it was almost like getting a smudge on a watercolor.

I silently forgave her for being there, because Middleton Place certainly doesn't belong to me.

But today it sure felt like it.