Thunderstorm
When I got home from work today, my dad greeted me outside. “The power is out,” he said. “It’s been out since about 6. I don’t know when it will be back on.”
This immediately irritated me. I’m trying to get promoted and I needed to make a business plan tonight after receiving some much-needed guidance on how to go about doing it. But, there was nothing to be done about that, so I got out of the car and commented on how there was rain heading our way; I’d avoided it coming home but it had been raining in bursts at the store. Looking in the distance, you could see the clouds darkening, moving southwest at a fairly rapid pace.
Dad sat in the garage and invited me to come sit with him and talk about our days, after all, there was not much else to do. We sat in the garage and chatted and watched the storm roll in. It was spectacular; the wind picked up right before, blowing dust in our eyes. There was the tiniest bit of hail, really, sounding similar to hard rain, but too early and raindrop-less to be anything but. Then there was the rain, and the thunder, and some cracks of lightning that were almost deafening. It’s funny because I remember hearing thunderstorms all the time growing up, but I guess since the drought we don’t get them as often. My brother and his fiance had joined us at this point, and we all stood around and watched the storm.
“You know, if the power was on we wouldn’t be out here. We spend so much time on our computers and inside that we forget how it’s nice to just watch nature every once in a while.” Dad was right, of course.
It took me back to when the hurricane happened and we were without power for almost 2 weeks. At first, it was awful; not being able to fall asleep until well after dark even though there was nothing to do, missing the constant stream of communication the internet affords us, picking up shattered plastic from the roof of the barn, day in and day out…but by the end it was something wonderful. I went to bed when it was dark (around 8:30-9) and was waking up naturally around 7 to go to our neighbor’s house for a shower and coffee (they had a generator). The camaraderie on our street was something to behold; neighbors had cookouts to clear their freezers and if you needed something, you walked down and talked to someone in person.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my technology. I love having friends that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the internet…I just think that sometimes it is good to just sit outside and watch the storm roll in.