storms

One of the things that makes living on the surface of the sun (or, Texas) bearable: Storms.

It’s hard for me to put into words exactly what draws me to storms. Violence? Powerlessness? Change? A sense of being at one with nature? It feels like a strong spiritual connection, maybe the way some people feel about god.

Unfortunately this has been a crappy year for storms. Even the storm that produced the Great Flood of March 2006 didn’t have much in the way of spectaculars, except for extreme rainfall. I’m pretty sure that was our rain for the year. Everything now feels parched and dusty; my garden, the air, my skin, my eyes. Dry and cracking. The forecast shows nothing but an unmitigated Big Ball of Fire from now through next Thursday, and it’s been stuck that way since May.

Maybe it’s too hot for a storm to properly form. Today it was 106.2 on my shady porch. That’s not the hottest it’s been this year, and it neither surprised or fazed me to see that temperature on the gauge.

There’s a silly saying about Texas: If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. Sure doesn’t feel like that’s true anymore.