THUNDERSTORMS

For some fifty years, we lived in what they today call a "starter home."  For us back in the 1960s, there was no such thing as a starter home.  When we bought our 1-1/2 story Cape Cod built in 1945, we were thrilled to have  our lifetime home.

And, we did.  Up until the time we decided to let go of all the work, the maintenance, the needed updates.  The memories most dear are the ones that took place outside on our screened-in patio.  We sat out there during thunderstorms, watching it pour down rain.  We sipped and supped out there, and most likely said, "we needed this rain."  

Fast forward to today, where I sit looking out at our covered deck, where we now sit when it rains, we sip and nibble out there, and are still saying, "we needed this rain."  During heavy rains, we open the sliding door and it feels as though we're outside.  This may sound silly, but non-damaging thunderstorms with rainfall have always been special times for us.  

Most people complain about rainy days, but no one will ever hear me complain when water blesses us from above like Catholic holy water.  Cloudy, overcast days, to the two of us, are cozy-in days.  My memories of rainy days take me back to my first years when my parents and brother and I lived in a large 3-story old stone house.  Rainy days meant that daddy would be in the house with us, not out working on the farm.  Us kids made tents by putting blankets over chairs and then crawling inside.  The lightning strikes and thunder were so loud, they penetrated the thick limestone walls.

For the fun of it, I share a quotation from Charles Dickens' Bleak House, 1852-1853.....

"Upon the Saturday we sat here, until we heard thunder muttering in the distance, and felt the large rain-drops rattle through the leaves.  The weather had been all the week extremely sultry; but, the storm broke so suddenly.  We ran out of the wood and to the keeper's lodge.  We sat watching the storm.  It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder, and to see the lightning; and, while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent they are, and how upon the smallest flower and leaf there was already a freshness poured from all this seeming rage, which seemed to make creation new again."

It gives me giggles to think that I'm now an old lady who still likes to sit under my covered porch, with coffee, mumbling "we needed this rain."  But, this isn't anything new for me.  I've done this all my life.