Lightning illuminates the window, like a scary film’s opening. Husband and I look at each other. We can already tell it’s going to be a bad one. Which means…
Knock knock knock
It begins.
Over the next half hour, they are in and out of our room, racing between the gaps of lighting and thunder. The rumbling crashes and echoes across the canyon in a way that makes it sound much worse than it actually is. The rain hisses and whips against the window, the wind picking up into what sounds like a dragon roar.
They are, predictably, scared. And though the knocking followed by kids announcing they’re scared (as if we don’t already know) starts to get annoying when my husband and I are ready to go to bed ourselves, I know that the announcement, the communal nature of this safe place, this bedroom where a mom and dad recline with books open on their laps, is a comforting place. I remember how terrifying storms could be when I was a kid. My mom would let my sister and brother and me sleep together in the living room, which was in the center of our house. I remember once sleeping in boxes, like we were camping in our own personal tents, but that memory might be inaccurate, something I constructed over an experience less exotic.
I used to dislike storms, and I still dislike driving in them. When I was a teenager I used to check the clouds to make sure there were no funnels, because I was terrified of tornadoes. Now I rarely worry about that sort of thing; San Antonio is not known for tornadoes. I’ve grown up, and storms are, if not calming, at least tolerable. But I remember enough to empathize with my sons, so patience does not feel like it asks too much tonight (though a sleep-deprived tomorrow might tell another story).
Eventually our sons go to sleep and my husband and I lie awake in our bed, the storm roaring and flashing outside our bedroom window. Both of us toss and turn, finding sleep close to impossible.
But maybe storms are not meant to be slept through.
Maybe they are, instead, meant to be enjoyed.
