lx-post - storms

The night I was born there was a huge storm. At least if my parents are to be believed. My mother still claims that the storm, and a broken window in her hospital room are the reason she can down with ppnemona the next day. All I know is that I have always loved storms, not just sitting and listening to them -- though I like that too -- but getting out in the them, or just before them, when the lightening is still a ways off, flashing the horizen and the dark thunderheads have obscured the light of day, the wind is starting to pick up, it's as if the world were waking up, finally coming alivve with something massive and important to say, you can literally feel it in the air, electricity and ozone are a potent mix, they smell something like freedome to me.

A good storm is my favorite time to get out in nature -- camping, hiking the high country or swimming in the ocean. I've been surfing as hurricanes approached, swam in Mexico while lighten struck the sea in front of me and I still love to be out on the shore when storms arrive. 

I've been thinking about storms. It's the time of year to do that here in the American South. More than stormms though, I've been thinking about what 


I'm not a huge fan of torrential downpours. Snow is fun for the first three days. Torandos are so far outside anything I've experienced they remain unfathomable to me. I've been through two relatively minor hurricanes and I'm not sure I'd enjoy the full frontal assault, but a good thunderstorm is beautiful thing.

It's one of the things I love about the American south. Nearly every afternoon in the summer you can count on some sort of storm. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it's just lightening and thunder off in the distance, but the sky nearly always delivers around here. Occassionally it over delivers and destroys the roof of your porch, but that's how life goes, you have to accept of bad with your good, it's inevitable. And hey, now we can grow full sun plants on the porch.