Beginnings

     Lying awake in bed, reading on the computer.  It’s late, but I can’t sleep.  It’s the first hot night we’ve had.  An anomaly that is Spring here.  The ceiling fan is on high and brings some relief.  Something in the window catches the corner of my eye, but I keep reading.  There it is again, … a bright flash in the distance.  A storm is moving out there, somewhere.  I turn, now distracted, and watch out the window.  Another flash illuminates the clouds on the horizon.  I pick up the computer again and pull up the weather map.  Amorphous green and red blobs march in a string across the animated map.  They’re progressing this way, towards the little “pin” that marks our spot on the map.  I put the computer away and turn out the light.  I should be unconscious by now.  My body aches with the onset of spring weather and the yard work it brings with it.  My mind refuses to play along, however.  I roll on my side and stare out the window.  The flashes are brighter and more persistent now, accompanied by the distant low rumbling of thunder.  I close my eyes, willing myself to sleep.  Through my eyelids I am still seeing the flashes.  I resume looking out the window.  Without warning, a blazing bolt of lightning arcs across the sky, strobing several times, revealing every detail of the low hanging clouds, the barn, the grass … and then it’s gone, leaving me momentarily blinded, my eyes searching in the darkness for shape or form, but only finding after images of that last flash.  The thunder takes several seconds to arrive, beginning with a loud crack and tailing off into staccato booms.

     I remember excitedly watching storms as a little boy.  From our house on a hill, I could watch them roll off the Front Range, striking the dragon shaped Cheyenne Mountain in the distance.  My enthusiasm for them has waned some with the responsibilities and concerns that are acquired with adulthood, so the show outside now makes me restless.  I think to myself how different this is from last year when we had a snow storm on this day.  Then again, who knows what next week will bring.

     Soon rain begins to splatter on the windows, the wind throwing it in spurts against the glass.  A loud boom shakes the house.  Wendy raises her head and looks over at us.  Beth calms her and she lays her head down again.  Eventually, the quick moving storm starts to subside as it passes by.  I close my eyes again, thinking of the garden we worked on planting today.  The warm weather had encouraged me to get things going, so we put most of the seeds in … peas, carrots, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, in addition to some flowers and borage for the bees.  A bit more to follow when it really gets warmer, but a nice start.  With the storm finally quieted down, I start to fall to sleep thinking of the garden and the nice rain it is getting now.  A good beginning to this year.