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It takes dirt roads to get there. The air has been heavy for days; you're beginning to think it's raining when it's not: your eyes play tricks, moving the opaque moisture in the air into imaginary sheets of slate and silver. It doesn't rain, it just is, and the pressure is intense. The corner of your eye catches ghost motions. Everything is green and shadow.
A high deck, looking out over fields and forests, ending in mountains that jag into the horizon. The sky above you was blue ten minutes ago; you see the last of the clearness fading away toward the mountains. Darkness envelopes you, and lightening flickers absently behind you. Thunder echoes faintly through the countours of the land. Ten year old boys throw balls in the grass below you. An old dog, wet from a recent frolic in the creek, naps on the hot wood. You watch the blue sky recede. You feel the energy in the air.
Without warning, the sky opens; you remember your book, your electronics; you remember that you forgot a change of clothes. You regretfully retreat indoors.
You stand, in a darkened room, in an open door, watching the sky fall, listening to a redwing blackbird berate the wind from the safety of an overhang.
Fresh coffee, the first you've had in a week, made just for you, is pressed into your hand. As you watch the violent storm break calmly from the dry indoors, you smell steam and feel the faint warm glow inside your chest that comes from your favorite indulgence.
Summer storms. I adore summer storms.
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