The Passing Storm

"There's a sound of distant thunder and I'm glad it's not a war I'm fighting. I have too many of my own battles to contend with." -Me

I'm wide awake. It's 1:30am and I hear thunder from distant storms. I read earlier that severe weather had damaged at least 10 homes here in eastern Tennessee tonight. At that time, there had not been any reports of deaths or injuries, to which I was relieved to hear. But the news continues to be covered even when I'm not reading about it on the Internet, hearing it on the radio, or watching it on TV. It might be a different story in the morning.

Right here, right now, the night insects are still calling out for mates and the rolling of thunder still sounds distant. There isn't any wind nor is there rain falling on the roof. Every now and then, the AC unit kicks on, drowning out all sounds of the outside world for just a few minutes; and when it cycles down, the night sounds resume. But the incessant sound of inner thoughts can't be muffled by the insects nor thunder nor the window unit in my room.

There's a place not too far from here, perhaps only an hour away, that popped into my mind tonight. I haven't been there in many years, but I can hear the water trickling over the rocks and her laughter echoing through them still. A hot summer day, two people with no one else in sight, and a sense of bravery over inhibitions created an unforgettable experience with nature and natural beauty. There was no rain, no thunder then; no battles being fought. Just love...

There is wind now. I can hear it blowing through the trees in my yard and through the trusses of the faux roof above this place. I believe rain is not far off.

It's long gone now, but another place on the side of a mountain, where behind the confines of a locked door, a whirlpool tub overflowed with round shimmering pockets of rainbow color. Perhaps we shouldn't have put bubble bath liquid in a whirlpool tub, but it wasn't a forethought, rather one made in hindsight as we laughed about the sticky situation. Once again, just love...

There's the rain. I hear it hitting the windows as it gets blown by the increasing wind and I hear it hitting the ground as it runs off the roof. That thunder is a lot closer now, too.

The waves of the Atlantic Ocean came crashing in with crests of glowing white and the stars eerily reflected off its rolling surface and the crashing sound was too loud and the sand was too thick and my brain couldn't comprehend and I couldn't take it anymore. My feet started moving and my voice quit working  and the motel room got further away the closer we got to it. Blackness was creeping and my thoughts were thinking that what I thought was in those capsules was not what was in those capsules at all. No, not at all. But she started the tub and the water poured over my hair and her hand petted my head and soothing words came out of her mouth and the fear and the loathing flowed down; it circled round and found the drain. There was no rain, but there was thunder from a battle being fought that night, not between the two, but within the one; within myself.

There's still thunder. There's still rain. Intermittent thunder; constant rain. And I'm still awake.

All that stuff from the past? It's gone as a real thing. But just as this passing storm, it's reality. The storms will pass. They might leave behind evidence of their passing. They might just pass on through without a trace, with only the memory of the thunder and the watering of a thirsty landscape left as a reminder. That's the good stuff a storm leaves behind. It does the things that it's supposed to do; water the earth, clean the air, cool the temperatures. It does what it is intended to do, then it moves on. But you know it's been there.

Why I thought about this stuff tonight is beyond me. It's been years since major storms have passed in my life, but evidence of their passing still linger as an etching of professed love lingers in the bark of an ever-growing tree. The bark may cover over most of the scar, but if the etched memory was made deep enough, it will always be there.

I think about other places around the world, places I've never been to and probably never will visit, that the sound of thunder might not indicate a weather related storm, but instead a storm of war; flashes of lightning that are fired missles; the sound of thunder that are exploding bombs; raindrops are a hail of bullets. I think of these things and I think, "I'm glad that's not my storm."

I think I'm in a pretty good place now. I'm not concerned with much. I have my kids, my job, my decreasing waistline, and my increasing health and happiness. I'm a patient man. I don't mind waiting through storms for what's right. As I was folding clothes earlier tonight, I saw a t-shirt of my daughter's. On it, there was a T-Rex, an asteroid, and the words, "Good things come to those who wait...sometimes." As insightful and thoughtful as it is, I laughed. She has my humor.

It's 3:30am now. The storm has passed. The rain has tapered off and the thunder is distant once again. My wandering mind? It too had tapered off to a distant thunder. It is almost quiet.

And it waits.