Time to take a break make a pot of tea, warm up some peach cobbler,” I think as I listen to the dark sky thunder, a few raindrops flung to the ground almost like an afterthought.
Lightening all around me, thunder like bombs falling. “Safe as houses”: the old idiom pops into my mind as windows rattle and the floor vibrates so violently that I can see the concrete foundation breaking like a wafer in my mind’s eye. This safe home has a soundtrack like a report from a war zone this afternoon. Blessed rain finally begins, soothingly.
But wait, I spoke too soon. The cool hiss of rain brings no relief from the aural assault. The world just went white. I blink, eardrums tingling, surprised we still have power. The dogs bark, sudden and sharp, then huddle near. I’m the calm at the eye of the storm.
Which passes quickly. I mean the storm, not the calm. Born and raised in a rainy clime, I’m still astonished at the power of an electrical storm. When the world isn’t flashing white and crackling with electricity as if we’re about to blow up or be catapulted into an alternate reality, in other words, when it’s just wild and strong without cataclysmic intentions or pretensions, it delights me.
Already, in the time it took to write this on my phone, there’s sunlight and the lacy shadow of the asparagus plumosa fern on the low living room window. An anole lizard climbs up the screen into a bright patch of light. The dogs drift off to sleep and I finish my mug of tea, stepping out into the wet sunny silence.
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