It is 3AM. I’m startled awake by a bright white flash followed by a loud deep crash.
I used to love thunder storms.
The cool air blowing the curtains, the static sound of rain on the roof, and distant thunder rolling and echoing in a low rumble across the island. As a teenager especially, one with a stormy disposition myself, I’d love to snuggle up in bed and sleep with the storm passing overhead. It gave a sense of calm, even surrender.
These days, with my adult anxieties, I think about the flooding roads. How will I get to work tomorrow if the roads are flooded? I have things to do, I have plans! How inconvenient for nature to do this, to me!
I can see why the ancients may have thought the gods were angry.
The white flashes infiltrating even closed eyelids, the loud booms that shake in your chest, and the rain that never seems to stop. The angry wind bending trees to bow their heads in the presence of forceful nature.
Storms are a way that nature tells us “You aren’t that important, you aren’t that in control”.
As an adult, I don’t like that. As an adult I like to have some semblance of being in control.
When we were children our mother would break out the board games during hurricanes and storms. I don’t remember having to be consoled during a storm, but it may have been a way for her to keep scared children occupied.
Usually the power would go out, but thanks to the wind it would often be cooler than normal in the tropics. Still, it wasn’t so cool that you could stay in bed. A storm in the night was always very uncomfortable if the power went out. But if it was during the day, no problem at all.
We’d sit on the covered patio talking with each other, or play Scrabble in the living room. Still have the Scrabble from 20 years ago, the box is falling apart and I’m sure letters are missing. It’s a keepsake from the simpler days when thunderstorms meant excitement and family and wonder.
Now they’re just inconvenient.
Image used is a commercially licensed stock photo