Thunder & Lightning

As storms rolled through our area last night, I found myself in awe of their power, once again. It is not just that they can down trees and power lines. That, of course, is part of it. But rather how it can take my brave little dog, who is afraid of nothing, who will chase down and bark at the least little sound, and turn him into a quivering pile of fur and bones.

How every person you meet will look at the storm as a nuisance, but also with a fear of saying that just out loud. They know. We all do. A storm is alive. If nothing else, you can feel a storm's life. It breathes. It moves. And like a two year old that has not gotten its way, it stomps through field after field, street after street demanding and crying for us to do its bidding. We no sooner know what to feed a storm than we do a picky two year old. It leaves before we can calm it and we are left with the aftermath.

Storms do one of two things to us...they either unnerve us, or comfort us. There have been times where the sounds of the rain falling on the roof, dripping from the eaves and the distant thunder have swayed me to sleep. And there have been times where I have sat, tense with a cup of tea and, of course, a scared dog and listened to nature howl around me. Just hoping that, for at least right now, I was going to stay safe and dry...but not believing it.

Storms have robbed me, at times, of just my creature comforts. I am always just a little undone by a storm that leaves me without electricity. It is that sense of..."how long until it comes back on?" that leaves me fretful and pacing back and forth. It is our nature, in the way of things today, to not know how to live without the things that a storm can take away in just a second.

Our alarm clocks, our microwaves, our refrigerators, and, of course, our computers. We feel as though part of arms are tied behind our back without them. And we amble around our houses trying to figure out how to exist without the use of these things.

Which always leads me, no matter what, to pause and think about how complicated our lives have become. If I find it hard to exist and even do things without these "conveniences" what would I do if I were really pushed to rough it? Even when we would go hiking or camping when I was growing up there were conveniences attached to what we did....as many as we could haul with us...and still respectably call ourselves campers.

Now my idea of roughing it is a Motel 6 without a phone. And the saddest part is, I am no pampered princess. I recall a night in Tennessee when a storm hit and took the power just as I was getting ready to make dinner. The kids are standing around looking at me as if I could magically snap my fingers and make the television and Internet come back on. They have a hard time conceptualizing something called a "book." And as I stood there looking in the fridge trying to figure out how to make dinner, I looked over at the stove and thought, "hmmm....I can't cook anything on the stove. OH! I know....I just pop it in the microwave."

Paralyzed indeed.