The Sky Darkens

I was sitting at the kitchen counter, reading one of those books that I don't particularly like but I read anyway and am not sure why, when I noticed that, at 2:30 pm three days after the summer solstice, the sky was darkening. Obviously a thunderstorm, which thrilled me as I love thunderstorms, and bothered me because I hate turning on lights in the middle of the day and it was so dark I that would have to. So, I left my book and went to play the piano. After twenty minutes of this, I was playing some Duvernoy etudes and not really focusing on the piece while my fingers played the notes all by themselves (this happens to me very often) and it occurred to me that I would really like to go outside and lie on the grass and take pictures of the sky until it started raining. I thought about how a cloudy sky really isn't just one layer of clouds--it is several, clumped together to create beautiful designs and beautiful photographs, especially if there are some tree branches or something around the edges. However, in my head, I argued against this idea, as I practiced my etudes, for the reason that I am wearing my lovely new American Eagle blouse that I bought only yesterday, and wouldn't want to stain it from lying on the ground...
Then I stopped--this seemed meaningful. Did I really decide not to go outside because of something material and, in the long run, extremely trivial? Why do I think that so many others have done this, too? That all of society is caught under the spell of material thinking, and not the possibility of lying in the grass before a storm???!!!! This shocked me into swiftly wrapping up my practicing to grab the camera (you probably know me well enough by now that I didn't even have to think to do this, I just did--cameras are extensions of my hands) and open the squeaky breezeway door to the gorgeous day that awaited me. I didn't lie on the grass, I chose a wooden bench instead. Maybe next time, though, when the sky darkens, I will choose the grass.