I am the Storm

This afternoon I took Boo to the Biltmore for an early dinner. As we waited in the cold rain for the shuttle two ladies behind us asked if we’d been to the house before. Boo piped up, “Oh yes, we come here all the time.” One of the women said, “And you picked today?” She meant because of the weather.

As Boo and I stepped out on to the large open terrace that overlooks the Blue Ridge Mountains we noticed a few people with their hoods up trying to keep upright. It was an abnormally windy day, we had just come down from Craggy Gardens where the wind gusts were at least 45 mph. The same wind was hitting the enormous backside of the Biltmore and whooshing across one corner of the terrace. Boo and I had the same idea: we zipped up our jackets, pulled up our hoods and stepped out into the vortex. The wind was so strong that she could lean back into it and still remain upright:

There was a light but wild rain drizzle. At one point we thought there were some snowflakes. As Boo watched the storms off in the distance I snapped this photo:

It made me think of one of my favorite quotes:

Fate whispers to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm.”

The warrior whispers back, “I am the storm.”