I Don’t

I don't know what to make of me tonight.

The hot weather has more or less ended and the inevitable thunder storms have begun. Earlier this afternoon, there was tennis ball sized hail just north of the city. Windows of cars smashed out, crops flattened, house siding shattered and I would imagine more that a few animals and people are nursing bruises right now. There was a tiny amount of rain where I live and we heard the thunder from a distant storm. Everything is good in my little corner of the planet.

The storm just may have taken a u-turn. I was just outside and listened to a thunder clap much too loud and the cushion that I foolishly left out is now drying out in the garage on the hood of my car. I was going to do some weeding, but my heart isn’t in it if the weather is nice, so I don’t see myself grubbing in the mud wearing a rain slicker while lightning dances all around me. That isn’t what I consider fun. Tomorrow morning I will try to pull a few out for the garbage man, but he may just go away a little lighter than he should be.

I do like to watch interesting weather, preferably from indoors but there is something to be said for being out in the thick of it. I would love to be on the west coast of Vancouver Island during one of their famous winter storms. Huge logs are tossed about like matchsticks and very few man made structures can last more than a few years. It would truly be something to see! That is nature at its fiercest and finest. I walked the West Coast Trail in the summer, so I saw the results of the storms. One day I’ll stand well back from the beach and watch Mother Nature having fun.

I have spent my share of time walking in serious weather while I was delivering mail. I took shelter from hail storms on the lee side of a house, waiting for the larger pieces of ice to turn into cold rain. Lightning never worried me because most of the trees and house would have been hit before I was taken down. I could have been collateral damage, but I took a chance and won. I was caught above the tree line on a mountain once when a storm came in quickly. I sat on my pack and made myself as small as humanly possible. I pretended I was a mouse.

I would like to be out in this kind of serious weather, but in a plastic bubble. It’s the sort of thing that guinea pigs run around a house in, only quite a bit larger. I could watch the weather and let myself be blown around by the wind and possibly float around on the water, down streams and into rivers. Unfortunately, I will never do it because I wouldn’t be able to stop and get out when it started to get scary. Maybe I will read about some nutcase that figured a way how to do it someday.

No, tonight I will sit inside, reading a book and looking out at the storm every now and between sips of tea. Others need to be outside, but I don’t.