last night was a typical magnificent free evening. i ate, finished the book i was reading, slapped some moisturiser on my face (years too late to start now, but there you go), woke sebs up to take him for a semi conscious wee, put him back to bed, checked the babeolas, took myself to bed and prepared for a night of some sleep.
i dont sleep well when magnificent is gone. not because he is such a part of my life that i can't sleep when we aren't wrapped together, more so a paranoia that there is something out there. not a person. something. i eventually will get to sleep, but it will be an uneasy sleep. full of starts.
saddled with that unease, imagine how i reacted around 1.45am when the room flashed with light. i shot right up in bed, heart pounding and knew that the thing had entered my room. except (surprise), it hadn't. false alarm.
i lay back in bed again, heart pounding. i hate my heart pounding like that, it reminds me of the burst i get in the minutes before a seizure, fear, adrenalin, mouth dry, body sweating. and then the room was light again as a streak of lightning flashed across the sky.
relieved, i listened carefully...no thunder apparent. fair enough, the storm wasn't close. for the next 20 minutes, there were lightening streaks once every two minutes or so. i managed to fall back to sleep, and had a terrible dream where because of the lightning, sebastian came to our room and then wtih the next streak of lightning i looked beside me and couldn't see him...and i started screaming. (in the dream).
that was enough to wake me up, heart again booming, and i rushed to the kids room just to make sure. there they were, sleeping.
back to room, and heard the distant rumble of thunder.
the lightening was changing, instead of thin streaks lazily cutting across the sky, the streaks were brighter and extending. like a branch in spring, there were offshoots from from the streak, long thin twisted fingers.
and then the thunder decided to be the vocal accompaniment to the lightning. slice across the sky and BOOM. five minutes of this and then the boom became a CRACK BOOM. and the lightning got brighter and the rain started pouring, vertically and then diagonally. fire trucks were breaking through the rain coated streets, drains were swirling trying to keep up with the downpour. and the lighting continued. for a while there, inside 15 seconds there were three flashes. and they were so bright i couldn't look at them so i can't tell you what shape they were.
it was fascinating to watch it happen, and to look through the windows of our flat and see others in our building also watching nature's late night show. you sometimes forget how powerful nature is. and beautiful.
kids started crying and i went in to pat them down and pick them up as needed. was patting someone as a particularly loud CRACK sounded over us, and popped their thumb in their mouth in hopes it would take care of the situation. (and it did). at one point, seb's eyes flickered open, but he rolled over and went back to sleep. of all the kids, i was most worried for him, it he had woken up to this, it would have really frightened him.
the elapsed time between the streaks and the sound was lengthing. the storm was moving away, the sky was no longer light with occasional dark periods.
a few more flickers, and the room and sky were dark again. the last lightning streak i saw was at around 3am, one hour and 15 minutes after i saw the first one.
it was annoying to be woken up like that, but it was a beautiful display. i searched for the storm on the internet today, but nothing showed up. it was so worthy of column inches! forget the irony of tom cruises baby being born the same day as brooke shields... this was newsworthy!
this morning i asked sebastian if anything interesting had happened last night. he replied, "yes mummy, i heard very loud noises, but i just grabbed Special Blanket and put that over my ears." i told him he had been very brave, but if he ever got scared by the lightning and "funder" again, he could come to our room.
i didn't like the funder, admitted sebastian, they made me scared.
well, it also rained alot and that was noisy too, i told him, which cheered him up greatly.
"because of the rain i need to wear my wellie boots." and he did.
I've always loved watching the thunderstorms. Here they usually come in the summer afternoons, so I can sit under the front overhang when it's 110f and see the clouds off in the distance, after a while the temp drops to 90f or so, the thunder wells up, and the sky falls open. After fifteen or twenty minutes it's all gone, and an hour later everything is dry and it's back to 110f. Dramatic.
Posted by: joeinvegas | April 25, 2006 at 12:17 PM