The world was raging outside my windows. Just sheets of glass and painted metal strips separating the inside of my home from the reckless abandonment of the drenched wind; my front door ached from the flows pressure. At first I thought to stay inside. It looked dangerous. Hostile. Drivers fled by, heeding nothing of their environment which was falling in branches around them. I watched, the destruction of my neighbors’ backyard; the palm trees swaying in hoola-hooping circles. The clouds indistinguishable from one another, a looming sheet of brooding gray. I could hear it all, and my eyes wandered restlessly back to the windows. No sooner did I try to ignore it to preserve my safety, was a raincoat in my hand as I wrestled to close the door and hop down the stairs in ankle boots to my car. ....
Back streets, I know them all. Often they are the best way to see where damage is done in neighborhoods, to see if any help is needed and feel the adrenalin from the ever threatening bush, but is also the key to safe travel. The largest hurdle to those of us comfortable driving in such conditions is everyone else and avoiding them is crucial. They are worse than the blinding pellets of water and the thrashing leaves on a busy road which others tend to either careen down or crawl up. Back roads allow certain securities in a road-mates behavior. They drive slowly, they easily avoid debris and the overall etiquette seems to invariably improve. ....
Where I am headed leaves my excitement building like the storm it seems. I park on a cemented shoulder in front of a small park placed snugly inside a little hill. It is isolated; a community of homes fall down the other side of the ridge, large cement walls built two person high surround their perimeter. Although the trees were planted by someone and not a weed dares hide in the lawn, the park swirls wildly. I walk past a play structure despite the concerned smirks from people driving by, at my back. The narrow paths have turned to flowing rivers, making the grass a less aquatic area to pass through, and I stroll to the valley rim. It is a rim, rising slightly above what feels like the natural ground, as if nothing more than an afterthought, an addition to the topography for the convenience of no other reason but to say one stood on the rim. A bottle, lain on its side, that is the valley. I can see the other edge as the water pelts at the soft tissue of my eyelids and the collar of my coat flaps against my right ear. ....
Facing the open canyon is equivalent to staring head on at the current of the storm which flows horizontal due to the wind. There is little to see, eyes are blurred from standing in the way of the busy rain. Turning to the right I can see what is coming in patches, to the left, where it is going, flowing on the wind in droves. Putting the storm at my back feels similar to the sensation of doing so on a beach, an action often deemed perilous if there is a want to keep standing and not get washed out to sea. ....
Jeans, jacket, brim of my boots, the wind catches them but so strong is it that they do not sway or dither but plaster against my body and hold firm in their wrapping. I hear the gale crash down the lip of the valley and desperately escape up to where I stand, thrashing against the hideous notion of being contained by walls of dirt. It spills beyond me with such force that I have to rethink my stance to that of a surfer, weight on my back leg, the front keeping balance. No sooner am I adjusted than a wave of a tsunami careens past me, the grass flattening completely and I wonder if my footing is soon to be lost. The intensity of it leaves me unable to move during the unrelenting minute, and reminds me that these are indeed forces, and although I have had my fun, I have disrespected it longer than is safe. My senses are restored. Nodding to the sky with an eared grin on my face I relent, giggling, gleeful, and go down stream and drenched, back into my car. ....
Reckless as it might have been, I feel unfettered. The electricity in the air has my body singing in concert as drops drip down my nose and throat. So often is the opportunity missed to play in the thrall of nature; a torrent of rain seldom lasts so long and mental notes turn into lost chances. ‘Next time’ isn’t always an adequate response as we miss our moment for something memorable. These I have, in abundance I am sad to recall… ....
But not this day.....
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