June twenty-first

Before the Thunderstorm, a haze like smoke filled the heavy air. Mom and I went for a walk. Leaving the air conditioned house was like walking into a fiery furnace: Oppressive, the heat on this first day of summer. Halfway out on the loop we saw the lightning... waited... heard the thunder; started to walk briskly toward home as the wind picked up.

I had been waiting for this: North Carolina summer thunderstorms -- and was a little disappointed not to have had any. But as we crossed through the woods behind the house and arrived at the back stoop, big drops fell as lightning cracked close by.

On the front porch I watch it, laughing: Rain, buffeted like clean white sheets on a line, so thick that the other side of the lake is masked as with fog -- only marked by the neighbors' light. The thick cloud passes by, curtain opening on late-light-illuminated clouds beyond. Now, I only hear the wind in the oaks -- feather leaves rasping together like a million dry and calloused palms; see the slowdance of the lanky pines -- silken needles stabbing the air; sense that the rain has stopped falling -- only the downspouts sing as the water-full gutters empty themselves.

This is my last night at Mom and Dad's house for... a long time. For me, the storm is a hoped-for treat, a parting gift received with open arms and smiling eyes. For many here in Sanford, storms are now a source of anxiety, terror; but I was not here for the tornado. My memories of thunder are sweet: of childhood summer eves on the porch with Dad, trying not to get wet from the wind-blown water; of going out to play in the last light of the day after the humidity has been nullified -- so heavy that it up and decided to fall from puffy clouds; of waking up in the dark to listen to rumbling, safe in bed.


I've grown more accustomed to traveling; I've not gotten used to having my heart in two different places -- split between continents, languages, families. It would be easier to ignore one and embrace the other--

Again I come to it, this tension in which I'm called to live, all of us are. Physical AND spiritual beings. Bounded by space and time. Invited (forced?) to LIVE -- on a tightrope, in the gray (there is no black and white in most cases). It's a circus act -- one must keep the right amount of slack in the line without letting loose; constant adjustments required.

How can we learn to enjoy the tension?
To live in the present?
To lead lives of moderated passion and prudence?


The deep-toned resonation of a wind chime reaches me on the rocking chair, following her invisible waves through the calm breeze. Rain's stopped again... or has it?
Thunderstorms make me want to write. Low thunder passes with a sound like an airplane (...or is it that an airplane sounds like thunder?), but the rain may stay. Tomorrow we'll drive to Charlotte, say goodbye for the months (year? more?) to come, and I'll board a cloud. Then, rumbling across the sky, I'll pass from one home to another.
I will live it, this division, this split affection, this tension; so I might as well enjoy it: every moment.