Walking home after a rain storm

 Friday, July 1, I was walking home after a rain storm.

I'd originally intended to head home a little earlier, but I didn't have an umbrella in my new office, so I waited out the storm and then left. 

Did I say "new office"? Yes, I did! Friday was the first day of our new academic year, and I had moved into my office in one of the college houses. After resigning my Associate Dean role on Wednesday, I had already had so much boxed up and ready to go that it was relatively easy to clean out the rest of my office in the administration building and move things over into the new place. So, in several ways this rain storm -- washing everything clean, with the sunshine coming out afterwards -- felt quite metaphorical.

In the 10 days since I resigned, I haven't had many reasons to regret this decision. For one thing, although my boss clearly got my resignation letter, and in fact told the president that I had stepped down, he hasn't sent an email or tried to talk to me once, and he hasn't told any of the faculty, who keep writing to me for dean-ly concerns.  What's up with that? Aside from confirming that being further away from him is the right place for me.  

The rain was so hard that it knocked branches
off of trees onto the ground.

One of my happy delights in this new space is it there are things that are just a real mess. The store room that multiple people have been using is just so disorganized that it's hard to walk around in.  B, my coworker in this building, had said they were planning to organize this as a summer project, but they're out with an ill family member, and I could tell from the way they said it but it was not one of their happy projects, so I have been plunging in to organizing All The Stuff myself. It's highly therapeutic.

There are puddles after such a hard rain, but they reflect light,
and they'll dry up and go away.