It's my favorite kind of weather, right before a storm. The wind picks up, huge clouds billow around, the air smells like rain and the world waits, anticipating the rain that comes to clean the ground and the thunder that comes to shake loose our hearts. I love the smell of rain, especially summer rain, coming down onto hot pavement and giving the world a momentary reprieve from the sun. It makes me feel alive, to listen to the electricity crackling in the air and let the wind blow through my hair and the rain kiss my face. I know that one day, far too soon, these things will abandon me to the deadness of the dull winter sun or the chillness of a sad winter rain. I hang onto my summer storms, running out from the dry safety of a building to dance in them, sing in them, stand in them, as long as the ground holds me up and the air lets me breathe. How much more do I hang onto those fleeting moments before the sky opens up, when you can still see a little bit of the blue heaven before the clouds cover it entirely, when the wind greets you like an old friend and challenges you to a race before the world? These things, my friends, are glorious and come into my life just rarely enough to be always welcome.
And yet, tonight I wanted to run from the storm, from any indication of a storm. The story starts mundanely, as all the best ones do- business wasn't exactly booming on Franklin and I left work early. On the way out, I passed the homeless man sitting on the bench outside of the store, almost hid my face from the two down the road because I had bought them dinner last Monday and didn't have the same means tonight and power walked down to the corner before the lightning caught my eye. My heart sped up, my chest felt tight and I'm sure a little panic flashed over my face. I cross the street and another glance up at the sky finally links back into my mind that my bike is sitting behind Graham Memorial with its seat rain-cover on, waiting on me to save it from the storm. Thunder cracks, and not too far in the distance as I speed down the other side of Franklin. On the steps of University United Methodist, the homeless man from in front of Cold Stone fluffs his newspaper pillow and settles down behind a column. At the bus stop in front of the church, the pregnant lady I served chocolate with marshmallows and roasted almonds to sits and laughs with her mother, unaware that someone behind her won't be listening to the sounds of the rain on his roof, safe from the wet, as she will be as soon as the bus pulls around to take her home.
My heart still beating entirely too fast for the simple approach of a storm, I almost fly across a darkened quad, mistaking the lights of cars going down Cameron for fireflies and wishing that there really were lightning bugs to distract my attention from their namesake. The quad is quiet- for all I know, it could just be me, the quad and the storm stealing minutes from eternity. Keys out, I unlock my bike, take off the rain cover and actually hop on, pedaling like crazy to outrun the downpour, to escape the clouds, to hide in safety from the still-distant lightning. I speed by Hill Hall and perhaps on another night I would be struck by its proud stance in the face of such a storm, but not tonight. My mind is racing as fast as my bike, jumping from seventeen to nineteen to twenty and the things I would take back and the things I would keep and everything that I would have done. I'm coasting down the small hill across the street from Phillips and Peabody before my mind takes up the idea that my fear, my urgency, my race is quite ridiculous. The thunder, right on cue, claps again, and I wake up and pedal faster.
Across Columbia, flitting by frat houses and my bike begins to feel like my noble steed, carrying me far from the troubles that chase me. Victorious, I come down a hill and turn on to Pittsboro, pedaling like a child who rides his bike fast just because he can or who stands at the top of a hill on her rollerblades, taking a breath just before she starts down, flying into the grassy bank at the bottom, speeding up on the way down just to say she did. It's the only kind of speed I indulge in these days, the kind that says that I can but choose not to, the kind that lets you feel empowered because you and nobody but you taught that bike how to fly or those shoes how to soar. I run to feel the power in my legs, not because I need to. Needed to.
Lightning flashes in front of me as I swing into the driveway by Wesley but no matter- I'm back now, I'm safe. I wonder why I don't just sit down on the picnic tables, wait for the storm to come before heading inside. I lock up my bike and suddenly the urgency's back. I fumble with my keys before opening the door in a hurry and almost run up the stairs once I'm inside. I could sit in the sanctuary and listen to the storm before darkness takes over the world, but I don't. I'm safe, inside, doing household chores for a quarter of an hour before my heart slows down and I stop listening for the rain. I don't understand my panic, the need to run away from the storm instead of just dancing in it. Storms scare us all, as kids, even if it was only the first time we heard the thunder and didn't know what it was, but I've long since learned that there are much more terrible things in the world than summer thunderstorms. Why should I want to hide from one?
I'm not courageous. Sometimes I think I'm the most cowardly person I know. But then again, I always doubted whether the Cowardly Lion was just faking when I was little. I mean, sure, the Tinman couldn't help that he didn't have a heart, poor dear, and the Scarecrow didn't have much choice, with straw for brains, bless his soul. But the Cowardly Lion never made sense to me. Where does courage come from anyway?
Storms mean change. The world is never quite the same after its been rained on. Every good story needs a storm. Maybe that's why I love standing in front of one so much- it's like reading a book when you know what the end must come out to be, but you have no idea how it will get there. Before a storm, you know that things are going to be wet, that there will be puddles to jump in, but you have no clue how the clouds are going to achieve this. Will there be torrential downpours for a few minutes or light drizzle with a good solid rain near the end? Will the wind pick up and sling the drops invasively into people or will it lie low once the rain has started, letting it drop gently onto the waiting earth? Before a storm, existence is uncertain expectation with an end in mind. I think that I would love to live life that way.
Sometimes I think the thunderclouds know the great questions in my life. Maybe I stand in front of them because I want to listen. Maybe I ran because I've heard them talking and I'm not ready to do what they say. You know, when you hear, there's no excuse not to do.
Are you going to leave Me? No? Then do you love Me? More than you know?
Then follow Me.
Where? Does it matter? You're with Me. I'm not going to let you get lost. I love you. How will we get there? You'll see. Do you trust Me?
Then come.
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