Welcome to another week of life on the road. This week, we’re in Mississippi, moving between our families to both catch up and also take care of some family needs. Heads up, I probably won’t publish as regularly during the next few weeks. But I’ll send updates when I can.
As I sat in my bed on a Friday night in Austin, reading a book, a huge thunderclap rumbled outside. I could feel it through the walls and the floor.
I smiled, and waited.
“Genie?” Aaron called out with glee. “Come heeeeere!”
Thunderstorms aren’t a thing in the Pacific Northwest. Which Aaron and I did not know when we moved to Seattle. I don’t remember when exactly, but we’d been living in Seattle for at least a year if not two, and it happened—we heard a small rumble of thunder outside.
We both looked at each other with wide eyes.
“Wait a second. That felt so weird. Have we not heard any thunder since we’ve been here?!”
With the nearly ever-present drizzle in Seattle, we certainly hadn’t missed rain. And it just didn’t occur to us that those big, loud storms, weren’t happening here.
Once we noticed, though, we really noticed. We’ve been talking about it for years, the fact that we missed thunderstorms in the PNW. It was a part of our standard answer when people asked if we missed home.
“There’s a lot we don’t miss, but boy, we sure miss thunderstorms!”
After the thunder clap and my husband’s gleeful shout, I came out to the living room. The front door was open and he was already outside.
I went out in my socks to join him. Lightning was flashing all throughout the sky. It was pretty cloudy, so we weren’t seeing a lot of lightning streaks, but the shapes and shadows of the clouds as the sky behind them flashed over and over.
It wasn’t raining yet. We stood outside, looking up, trying to see all the lightning at once (impossible, of course). Aaron laughed loudly. “I love this!!” He laid down on the sidewalk, staring up at the sky.
Because storms like this were so commonplace when I was growing up, I don’t think I ever really paid attention to how they move or how they feel from start to finish. But this time, I observed the whole thing.
We could hear the low thunder from the west moving closer to us. A good trick we learned as kids to see how close a storm is: when you see a big flash of lighting, start counting until the next clap of thunder. The more seconds in between the lightning and thunder, the farther away the storm is.
We counted like children as the storm moved toward us. The rain started, so slowly at first, and then suddenly a complete downpour. I ran onto the porch for cover first, while Aaron splashed around for a few more minutes. Eventually, he got out an umbrella.
I kept staring up at a streetlight to get a good look at the rain. Such a change from the Seattle drizzle—big, fat, heavy raindrops relentlessly falling from the sky. Falling’s not even the right word. Pummeling, maybe. The kind of heavy rain that might’ve scared me as a young child, and sparked my imagination a few short years later, playing make believe with my sisters as The Boxcar Children caught in a storm. The rain that now pairs best with a cozy blanket and a good book.
The rain only lasted maybe 15 or 20 minutes. I’d really forgotten how quickly these storms can move on through. But the lightning continued for at least another hour, if not longer.
The night of the storm was maybe my favorite night in Austin so far. It’s fun to see our home through an entirely new lens. After having been gone for so long, this experience that used to be so regular and so mundane was now exciting, fascinating, and new again.
I can’t wait for the next thunderstorm.
What else is going on?
We drove a full 10-hour day between Aaron’s grandmother in West Columbia, TX and my mom in Oxford, MS. We’ve decided that 10 hours is too many hours to drive in one day.
We also drove through one of these lovely southern thunderstorms. It turns out I can wait for the next storm if I have to drive through it. I’d much rather be on a couch watching through a window.
Our last night in Austin was spent with my godsister (my parents are her godparents, we’re godsisters, don’t at me) and it was so fun. The best people are the ones who, even if you haven’t seen each other in years, fall right back into the same patterns and comfort as always. We had a blast.
Wow, congrats on your writing! You made thunderstorms exciting for a person who, to this day, is still afraid of them. Maybe I should leave home for a little longer!