I'm foregoing the standard post, including the Chuck Norris Fact (I'll get one later), for something more personal, more intimate.
Living here in Colorado as I do, it's rare that I get a moment when I feel like I could just as easily be in Oklahoma as in Colorado. Occasionally, though, some sort of event or situation comes up where I think, "It feels like home...it feels like Oklahoma." Usually it's something like low clouds obscuring everything, so you don't see the mountains (the one constant reminder that I am indeed in Colorado and not Oklahoma); Colorado without its mountains looks just about like any other place, frankly. These Oklahoma Moments are usually very, very brief and very, very rare, so I must enjoy them when I can get them. I just had one a few minutes ago, and I had to share it.
Our weather this spring and early summer has been mostly very hot and dry to say the least. As early as the beginning of last week, the annual rainfall total to date in Colorado was over 5 inches below normal for this time of year. Then the monsoon came last Friday evening, and we got three straight days of rain, rain, rain. Today was a better day, a more temperate, summer day. It was sunny and warm (but not hot) most of the day, more humid...a rarity in Colorado, no matter the time of year. As I got home around 5:20, some storms began to roll in. And they continued to roll in, and roll in...and now it's nearly 11 pm and we're getting some good old-fashioned thunderstorms rolling over the top of us. Not a lot of rain, but I've been listening to the thunder in the distance, so I came down to check on the dog and get my MP3 player in preparation for hitting the sack.
As I came downstairs, I heard the thunder and saw distance flashes of lightning out the window, and as usual, I was inexorably drawn to watch. Good, loud, flashy, sticky thunderstorms are something of a rarity in the Denver metro...the mountains break up the airflow and it's always very dry here; not a combination conducive to big, long thunderstorms. While the plains further east get the benefit of a good thunderstorm pretty regularly, once the turbulent air settles into a firm pattern of chaos that builds those incredible thunderheads, we don't get much of that sort of thing here, at least not on a regular basis. I always enjoy it when we do, and look forward to those times when the good ones come through.
I looked out the back door, and the Oklahoma Moment began in earnest. The thunder was clear, though far away, and there was some excellent flashes of lightning streaking across the distant sky. Finally, I had to do it. I slid the back door and screen open and stepped out into the night.
Immediately, the old familiar smell of rain, of pure humidity, hit my nose. I breathed in deeply, savoring that wonderful, hopeful smell. As I took it in, the thunder was louder, because I had no walls, no other sounds, nothing detracting from it; it boomed loudly and clearly, with the steady low rumble that always indicates a very turbulent, heavily-charged storm. The lightning was beautiful, mystical, thin tendrals of brilliant light shooting fire across the sky, the product of God's wondrous heavenly dynamo. I stood there for perhaps five minutes, enjoying the wonderful rush of these sensations, the sights, sounds, and smells of the storm...
For just that brief, fleeting moment, I was home.
For those of you who are there, reading this, please don't take it for granted. Thanks for reading along.
No comments:
Post a Comment