We’ve been immersed in wickedly hot weather the past three weeks. Fry an egg on the pavement kind of heat. Some people love these long, steaming hot days. Not me. I enjoy the beauty of summer, but you can bring on Fall, thank you very much. I’m a woman with a big head of curly hair and I turn into Medusa during the summer. (It’s just not fun wearing a sheet of insulation on your head.) But there is something that makes all this Tarzan heat worthwhile. Summer storms. Lightning. Thunder that makes the dishes shiver on the shelf. Black stallion clouds who jostle and fight with each other and then race across the sky. I’ll tolerate the heat for the promise of that.

Something primitive kicks in when you see an approaching storm. Your hair whips madly as you quickly gather whatever is flying around the yard. Hurry! Close the windows! You are in a race against time and a power far greater than yourself.

CRACKKKKKKKKKKK! A jagged bolt from the gods is thrown to the ground. And then… one one thousand….two one thousand….BOOM! The storm settles in a circle above your home. You’re breathless as you run into the house and close the door. You just missed the fat raindrops pounding their way into the earth outside. The thunder makes the windows rattle and when the lightning streaks across the sky the trees look like x-rays. But yet…

Would you ever admit how secretly thrilled you are at being alive in this wild moment?

Now it’s your turn…

Are you a storm chaser? Or would you rather be anywhere else when a storm is raging?

Write about it, Dorothy.

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