Dancing in the Rain

Photo courtesy of Morguefile.com

I used to love thunderstorms. When we were kids, my sister Ann and I loved nothing more than a good roaring thunderstorm. We had a screened in porch at the back of the house, and we would sit in chairs facing the backyard and watch nature's pyrotechnics. Once I remember the two of us running outside in our shorts and t-shirts on a hot summer afternoon while black skies poured rain onto the slick pavement. We danced through the puddles and the rushing water in the gutter in our bare feet.  I shudder to think what was in that water, but what a fun memory!

Since my friend Patty's firsthand experience with lightning, however, and since becoming a homeowner myself, I'm now afraid of lightning. I used to be cautious but this weekend, when we went to Patty's and saw the damage first hand - a giant red oak tree pretty much split in half by the explosion of lighting, the burned wires her husband pulled out of the basement - and saw how far, how strong, the lightning bolt traveled, I have grown apprehensive whenever "severe thunderstorms are predicted."

Photo courtesy of Morguefile.com

I started getting more cautious in 2005.  We had a power surge during a thunderstorm at our home on Long Island, and even though it was barely noticeable, it fried my poor computer. I lost the modem and it damaged the mother board.  Money spent to repair it, and then a virus killed the computer a short time later.  Now, whenever thunder is predicted, I unplug computer, modem, you name it.  My piano is an electronic keyboard and I keep it unplugged at all times unless I am playing it. I even keep my CD player unplugged!

Last night, the local TV station kept beeping in with severe thunderstorm warnings.  We had a few rumbles. I sat on the back deck before dinner, listening to my fountain and enjoying the flowers with Shadow while I read my book and checked on dinner cooking in the oven.  I started to get apprehensive.  I saw the big black clouds in the north.  I remembered that my sister Mary, who worked as a nurse for many years, told me that she once took care of a man who had been seated in an aluminum lawn chair, the kind I was sitting in, and he had been affected by a lightning strike...it had struck a tree many feet behind him while he was at a picnic, but the electricity traveled through the ground and into the lawn chair, hurting him.

It's these things I think about now instead of the joys of dancing in the rain.  Is this what is meant by growing up and losing your innocence? As a child, we danced with joy under the canopy of clouds. We marveled at the bolts of lightning streaking across the sky. Now I glance fearfully at the heavens and seriously consider hiding in my basement for an hour or two until tornado and thunderstorm warnings pass.  I check my cell phones, check the water supply in case the power runs out, make sure the pets have their ID tags on.

I think I am grown up.

Sometimes, I wish I was with Ann, dancing in the rain again.

Photo courtesy of Morguefile.com