Back in Queens, in the rear room of my old house, during a thunderstorm, I would lie on my bed and listen to the whooshing wind and the rain pelting against the porch’s aluminum awning. The somnambulistic sounds were perfect for snuggling with any book, many pillows and a well placed yawn. Even when hurricanes came through I thought it was just a grand time. I would hear the distant thunder cracks and count the seconds from flash to thunder roughly guessing at the distance. That was all true until I moved Here.

I’ve talked about the large open farm fields and may have even casually dropped my fear of tornadoes but I have yet to mention my newfound…respect (for fear is too strong a word) of thunderstorms.

Here the howling wind shakes my entire house with an overpowering fury: I feel useless against its force. My house feels like a cardboard shanty. The lightning flash is often coupled with the immediate rending of the sky and usually occurring a scant hundred yards away. It doesn’t rain here: the heavens Biblically “open”.

And I, lying on my bed, books long forgotten, stare at a sheets of waterfalls obscuring my window while silently wondering if I should be evacuating the family to the basement. With effort, I go fitfully to sleep.