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Flash Flood

Flash Flood

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Yesterday morning I turned right out of our neighborhood and entered a world of water. At the bottom of the first hill were deeper pools than I thought I should attempt. But the road was too narrow to turn around, so I plunged through, plumes of spray arcing above the windows. For the rest of the 20-minute trip, I struggled to see the road in front of me enough to figure out which side of it was most submerged. Sheets of rain poured across the pavement. I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, turned the wipers to the highest setting, and drove very, very slowly to the Metro parking garage. It was, in short, terrifying. Emily Dickinson said it best: “Nature, like us, is sometimes caught without her diadem.”

Facing the Enemy

Facing the Enemy

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We are not air-conditioning people. If we could do summer the way we wanted, our windows would always be open to the breeze. But we have teenagers, and we choose our battles, so the last few summers we keep our windows up and our AC on. Still, we never lose an opportunity to throw open the sash and let the sunshine in.

Until this summer.

This summer almost every day is over 90 degrees. This summer, heat is the enemy. So we sit outside in the evening, when the sun is down and the air is a balmy 85. Or early in the morning when there’s still a hint (and I mean a hint) of coolness in the air.
I used to think there was no such thing as too hot.
I’m not so sure anymore.

Moisture

Moisture

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We live these days in a kingdom of moisture. A couple weeks ago, it was hot and dry. Now it’s hot and humid. Dew is heavy on the grass. Evening thunderstorms thicken the air. Our windows fog. Walking is best in the morning, unless you want to saunter.

Open Window

Open Window

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Last night’s respite from midsummer heat gave us the excuse to turn off the air-conditioning and throw open the windows to the night air.

Fans whir, crickets sing, a faint smell of loamy earth wafts through the house. By the middle of the night the fan has sucked in enough cool air that I pull the comforter up around my chin.

It’s the best kind of chilly, air that is moist and moving and full of sounds and smells. I’ve missed it this summer.

A Change of Scene

A Change of Scene

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Darkness in the morning. Rain steadier than what I thought we’d get today. Everything left out on the deck: wooden rockers, chair cushions, one very soggy beach towel. For weeks the sun has ruled; there’s been no question about it. Every day a sunny day. And now today, something different. A new game in town. It’s refreshing. As long as it doesn’t last.

Gratitude and Ground Fog

Gratitude and Ground Fog

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A drive home across the mountains. No music, no news. Just the road and the ground fog, great swirling gobs of it. For more than an hour it rose from the earth, a sigh of gratitude, a bit of yogic breathing. It seemed as if nighttime was shedding its long robe, tossing it off in the first light of morning.

Clearing the Air

Clearing the Air

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Yesterday we had the first big thunderstorm of the season. The sky darkened, lightning flashed, the wind came up. There was that last-minute dash to bring in laundry air-drying on the deck. I can remember rushing to rescue an entire load from the clothesline when I was a kid. Pulling off the pins and tossing them into a bag, then running into the house, my arms full of sun-crisped sheets, just as the first fat drops fell. I had to leave for an appointment yesterday in the middle of the downpour so I missed the mid-storm coziness, being safe in the dark house while sheets of rain sweep the street. The thunderstorm is the central drama of summer. The air afterward so fresh you want to gulp it.

Reflections in the Rain

Reflections in the Rain

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I woke up this morning to the sound of an old friend. It was rain, liquid precipitation, that which does not need to be shoveled. It runs off in rivulets; it takes care of itself. It is also taking care of the snow, what’s left of it. Only the parking lot mountains remain.
I walked out on the deck and tiptoed through the puddles. Cold and clammy, they shiver in the breeze. If snow is a pillow, rain is a mirror. It glistens in the dull light; it has a life of its own. Unlike the snow, it reflects the world back to us.

Black Ice

Black Ice

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I’m not an ice skater, so when I hear the words “black ice” I don’t think of a calm skate on a frozen pond. Instead I imagine the skid mark, the tire tracks off the road. What is it about black ice that strikes terror in my heart? It’s the stealth, isn’t it? Fearing something that you can’t see. It’s the ordinariness of the ice, the way it poses as a puddle but turns out to be something more, something sinister. Black snow isn’t good either, of course, but at least you know what you’re getting — the fumes of a thousand internal combustion engines, the grit of countless plow-gouged roads. Black snow coats the roadside mounds and stands in sharp contrast to lawns of untouched white. But black ice is invisible; it’s felt before it’s seen. I drive cautiously when black ice is about; the curves of Fox Mill that are normally such a joy to lean into, I slog through slowly these days. And let’s not even mention how I shuffle along suspiciously shiny sidewalks. Black ice makes me walk like an old woman.

White Out

White Out

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This snow comes in with a roar and a whoosh, as a fierce wind blows from the west and the flakes fly sideways. Last week’s deluge was relentless but silent. Today’s is loud and dramatic. It’s a storm with more sound than picture, the kind where pioneers perished a few yards from their cabins because they’d lost their way. I have a sudden hankering to read Willa Cather, to tie a rope from our house to our car. I think of the power of the white out, not the correction fluid (which covered mistakes and offered a fresh start back before computers made it almost obsolete), but the white out of nature, which obscures and overwhelms.

As I sit here writing and listening to the sound of the wind and the trees beating against our windows, I hear another sound, a sound we’ve been waiting for these last five days but haven’t heard. It’s a snow plow, or, more accurately, a front-end loader, clearing our street (finally) in the midst of a blizzard. It’s taking a while, since neighbors are offering coffee and breakfast and brownies. (We’re a congenial lot here in Folkstone.) And it seems a fruitless occupation since the snow is blowing back over the road as quickly as they can move it away. Then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking. On some level I want to stay marooned. I was getting used to the isolation. The white out is fine by me.