A Spring Thunderstorm at Home

I sat outside last night in the rain. I had attempted to sit outside as the thunderstorm approached our house, but as I walked across the yard in a cool wind with a fresh pot of tea in hand, the first drops hit my arm. A loud murmur swept up the hollow from across the street, and I took off at a run for our house as a downpour engulfed our yard.
Retreating to the cover of my porch, I sat with my back against our front door as rain blew in around me, wetting my legs, and the back of my Mac. I listened to the rain splashing on the road and smacking upon the fresh maple leaves as lightning crystallized the thunderstorm momentarily in bright flashes.


Lights from around the corner swept up the road and past my house as cars passed, casting light on the rain hitting the flooded road. The hush of the thunderstorm quickly regained the night as each car passed slowly in the heavy rain. The storm passed over the ridge across the hollow from my house, casting violent lightning and thunder into the night for over an hour.
Despite the violence of such storms, I find an exhilarating quiet in such events. I meditated on the sounds passing around me as the storm swept across the ridge above my house. I kept my eyes wide open to the night, awaiting each lightning flash eagerly. Watching such storms pass is like watching a secret slideshow. You sit and listen in the darkness, then suddenly the night is momentarily obliterated, and the storm casts light on the scene it is creating around you. One second you may see toads hopping across the road in search of each other, another moment snowy petals blown from an apple tree across the street are crystallized in the air as the tree leans to one side under the breath of the storm.


Once, when I was still quite young during a July thunderstorm, I saw a deer staring out into the field from beneath an apple tree. I sat in the ensuing darkness, straining my eyes to pick the form out of the void beneath the tree. A minute later, the next flash of lightning showed only an empty spot, and the deer was nowhere to be seen.