I.

A shadow falls across the page of my novel. I look up as a strong wind races across my front yard. The clouds have come in: low, thick, dark grey layers. I stack my abandoned curriculum books and novel, balance my water bottle on top, and duck inside as the wind gives another warning push. The metal front door slams back and forth. I increase my pace. A couple of forays to bring in my bench and chair. Another, to set my buckets under the eaves. The first few spits of rain clank on the metal roof. At the last minute I decide to turn on the gas and make some tea. It’s going to be a big one today and there’s nothing better to go with rain than a hot drink. The rain is pouring by the time my water has boiled. My gas is secured outside but close enough to my door. It’s a quick hop out to turn it off. Nonetheless, my t-shirt is clinging to my shoulders with fresh rain as I hop in. 

When the rain comes my home turns in to a vast musical instrument. Wind through trees and cereal stalks are the soft, warning overture. Palms with long draping fronds, stiff fan-like palms, closely bunched mango leaves, baobab fruit hanging high above: each contribute to the percussion section. The steep corrugated roof is an impromptu xylophone. It is musician’s choice: will the storm play the roof with circling wind or fierce direct wind blowing east to west. Will he use the million sharp pin pricks of ocean-spray-rain or gather the rain into the fattest, heaviest drops he can muster? And for the grand effect — perhaps an ode to 1812’s cannons — the musician can muster the wind to repeatedly slam metal doors and shutters. Until the captive audience rushes to slam them herself and lock herself into the ram-tam machine.

I firmly slide the door bolt in to place. A small pool of water has already formed in the entrance where wind blew the rain in. I’ve been expecting a big storm for a couple of days. Mornings when the heat seems to rise without end are usually broken by a storm that moves swiftly in. Whole afternoons delightfully lost to the rain. Best laid plans replaced with cups of tea, novels, and naps. The pattern is changing as we move into the second half of the rainy season. Now there’s a few blistering days, a couple of false starts of rain before at last it all comes pelting down. Some days, like today, the rain arrives in the morning. I’m sleepy the rest of the day, even if it clears up in an hour.  I’m at the cusp of all that will arrive, but nostalgia for perfectly timed afternoon-nap-rains has already set in.  

The rain runs circles around my roof. I look out my back window and think of Dorothy being cartwheeled off to Oz. The millet stalks are pulled left and right and left again in half-turns. Green waves, far from the ocean. A light mist hitting my face: a sea breeze from green waves. A big gust of wind hurtling me off to another land seems as likely as anything else in all this sensation. I watch attentively. I’ve always liked a good storm.

II.

A memory from childhood days at Circle Drive: I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the big living room windows. The storm is the only illumination. My family surrounds me but my eyes are trained on our steep driveway below rushing with rain, the rich purples and blues of the clouds, and the road to the lake steadily disappearing in under the heavy rains. Nighttime often drains the world of color, but the storm seems to have only darkened, deepened, enriched the colors. In sudden bright flashes a whole new world appears for just a moment. This lightning-brightened world is not the same as my day-lit world. It’s strange and elongated. But it’s never around long enough for me to understand what I’ve seen.

Someone — Dad or Richard, or possibly both together — explain to me how to count between he thunder rolls and lightning flashes. Voices guide me from behind as I hold my gaze steadily across to the clouds. I count: One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi, Four-Mississippi — BOOM BOOM. Four miles away. My pleasure in mastering this skill is almost immediately interrupted by a new problem: how far away is four miles? One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi — oh about here to Morgan and Laura’s street, a voice explains — Three-Mississippi, Four-Mississippi, BOOM BOOM. My friends’ street? In a flash I have a vision of a bolt striking the peak of Laura’s roof, the windows flashing black and white skeleton outlines. I’m horrified. I’ve just counted my way towards electrifying my friends like some sort of cartoon villain. Someone — probably Mom — reassures me: one: lightning does not always strike ground, and two: this is not an exact science. She’s sure Laura has not just been struck by lightning. My guilt at electrocuting my friends ebbs and my concentration returns to the clouds. One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi — BOOM BOOM. 

A memory of sensations: brilliant vision and noises. The storm and the voices behind me. I remember what is said and what I learned. I’m unsure of whose voice is whose. Looking back, I assign each family member their likely role, but it’s a revision after the fact. The core of the memory is purple clouds, rushing water, and brighter-than-white light. The core is a feeling — a bodily knowing — of the power of the storm.