5/26/09 Mo-Rockin' Rainstorm

I'm sitting in my house (home sweet home!), listening to a storm whirl around me.

Loudest are the drips, splats, plunks, and spatters of the water leaking through the cracks around my skylight, into my front hall. (That's why my front hall stays mostly empty.) It drops and splashes in a never-constant, near-syncopated rhythm that reminds me of improv jazz.

Overhead, the sky roils; thunder growls and rumbles continually.

Out my window, I hear the rain slapping the ground and the nearby rooftops. It sounds like rain on leaves, but there are no trees nearby, so the drops must just be smacking the rapidly-growing puddles.

The light keeps changing, as clouds thicken and blow past, and as lightning sears across the sky.

I don't hear the wind, but I know it's out there. As I hurried home from teatime at a friend's, it hurled dust and sand in widening gyres. I hadn't realized my mouth was open in awe until I tasted the grit on my teeth. Trees swayed like cat-o-nine-tails, while paper bags shot through the air like they were en route to Oz.

My doors are bolted shut, my windows are locked, and I sit cross-legged, camped under a blanket with a flashlight close at hand... But this storm refuses to be shut out of my house, as the rapidly deepening pails of water (from the front room) noisily attest to.

Just another afternoon in my mountain aerie...