Here we are… the calm after the storm. Well, I guess calm is a relative term in this case. To me that means cleaning up my yard, and my house, which is more destroyed from my children being locked inside then from the storm. We had a few tense moments, more from the tornado warnings, but we are all fine with our electric restored after 18 hours on the fritz.
Since I had nothing to do Saturday night but sit and watch the storm roll in on the front porch, I got to thinking. I love storms, always have. The excitement of it, of the lightning and the thunder. It has always sent waves of exhilaration up my spine. Now, I still get waves of exhilaration, but sadly as a homeowner I get stressed as well. Right now, I’m in a house that’s so old, parts fall off all on their own. It doesn’t need any help from a hurricane or wind. Perhaps if I move into a rental, I’ll get to enjoy the storms just like when I was a kid…you know, when someone else had to do the clean up and file the homeowners claim.
When I got older, I began to realize that storms where not only a favorite of mine, but of authors and movie makers as well. They were constantly used by Austen in dramatic moments. Remember when Marianne almost caught her death by running towards Willoughby’s estate in Sense and Sensibility? How about The Perfect Storm? The night Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights? The part in Practical Magic (my favorite) when the girls bury Jimmy in the back yard during the rain storm? In fact, Alice Hoffman (who is my favorite author, hands down) includes rain in many of her books. And all of her books are part practical, part magical. So perhaps it’s that rain and storms have always appeared a bit magical to me, and there is nothing I love more than seeing the magic in everyday life. I'm hoping that at some point, you got to create some magic in your everyday life while enjoying at least some part of the storm.
I also have never been able to get the story by Ray Bradbury titled “All Summer in a Day” out of my mind. I must have been in elementary school when I first read it, already somewhat on the outside fringe of the “in” clique. The inside crowd was never where I longed to be, like some other girls I knew. I liked being outside of that group, it held no pressure for me to look the same as the other girls, dress the same. And most importantly, I never felt pressure to participate in cruel jokes and poor behavior that seemed to be the “hazing” you went through all the time to stay in that group. Sure, they made me the target sometimes, after all I was an easy, if unimaginative, target with red hair and gap teeth. I guess that made me the lazy girls target! When I read “All Summer in a Day”, I identified immediately. Not with Margot, per say, but with the cruelty of children and the need for so many children to go along with cruel behavior either to fit in or to remain obscure and invisible. No one wanted to rock the boat by standing up for Margot. And that was the lesson I retained from the story. In your lack of ability to stand up for someone else, you are never sure what you take away from them. It was a really powerful story in four short pages.
In addition to reading, writing, cooking (while I had electric!), I ran out to take some pictures, and tried to capture at least a bit of the beauty I find in rain. And when we did lose electric, I tried to convince my children that it would be fun to try and imagine how people lived a hundred or so years ago, without electric or running water. Too bad I didn’t think to capture their extremely unbelieving and critical faces. Clearly, they were on to a mothers desperate attempt at keeping the natives occupied during our blackout period. But hey, a moms gotta try!
I also realized when I began inserting pictures into this blog, that I take pictures of storms everywhere I go. Two of my favorites are from out west, one in Wyoming and one from Colorado, which is the most amazing picture I've ever taken. I think it looks like an angel. Oh, look! Everyday magic.
Hope you’re all getting by and on your way to life as usual. Or better yet, life unusual.
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