A couple of weeks ago we had an amazing thunder shower with deluge of hail. It was the kind of storm that everyone talked about for days.
For the past couple of years I’ve worked in a tall building on the 18th floor. I grew up in earthquake country so there's a part of me that believes being in a tall building is wrong but I have to admit, I enjoy the view. My office faces north and I can see the river and lots of bridges and a preview of my commute home before I head out the door.It was amazing to watch the storm move across the sky and the thunder and lightning felt like it was right above my head. From up here the hail looked like very heavy rain. From what I heard, people on the ground said it was pretty crazy. I'm not feeling particularly poetic at the moment so you'll have to take my word for it, it was cool.
As a kid, thunder and lightning terrified me and this fear lasted long after I should have outgrown it. Once, in Orleans, there was a 10 star, theater in the round thunder and lightning extravaganza. I was in my twenties. While a part of me enjoyed the amazing scene, the rest of me was still that little kid with the trembling knees wishing it would all be over.
My boyfriend, thinking if I was better informed I'd be less afraid, asked me if I knew what thunder was. "Yes," I said, and then realizing that I'd probably learned this from a cartoon or something I mumbled, "It's when two clouds bump together."
I'm not afraid anymore (we rarely get thunder showers) but if a flash and/or rumble wakes me in the middle of the night my heart will pound a little.
When I was little my Grandma and Grandpa had a record with a rain storm on it. I wish I could remember better because maybe there was music, too. But there was the sound of rain and then a rumble of thunder which would always make me shiver. And then at the end a long lonely whistle from a train.
