freakish

why am I so intrigued, enthralled, energized, mystified, captured, whatever word you so choose to use, by something that is so utterly freakish and destructive?

I decided to seize the opportunity to write right now, in a moment of inspiration, of pure energy...

If you don't already know this about me, I'm obsessed with thunderstorms. Ever since I was a little kid when I had my very own weather station in a tree (of all places!), I've had this astounding fascination with storms. I'm not entirely sure why... While for most, sunshine brings happiness and joy, thunderstorms energize me. Seriously, I'm like a small child on Christmas morning when they come. Unfortunately we haven't had any really good storms this summer. And I'm totally bummin'.

I would, however, like to take this moment to make a disclaimer/apology. I realize that storms are immensely destructive, and have caused lots of families major heartache. That is the one thing that sickens me about my love for storms - that they are such destructive things. However, in some respects, I love it because it's only a small ounce of the amount of power that God has, and that to me is an absolutely fabulous thing to behold.

About 10 minutes ago, I wandered outside amidst a very eery setting. The sky was this mad shade of orange. I took a picture of it... of course, it doesn't really do it justice, but you can see a small sliver of blue through the crazy orange clouds. Within 10 minutes, the sky shifted to a midnight blue with purplish hues, about the fastest I have ever seen the sky change colors. Granted, I have seen storms roll in pretty fast, but that's just going from light to dark, cloudless to cloudy... these were completely different colors. WILD! Right now, it's very very still... I can only hear the hum of the power lines, and the slight chirping of crickets. Every so often, a quiet rumbling in the distance, and I can hear the weather station on the television downstairs... but these sounds are muted against the deafening silence that's outside right now. Usually, silence is so overlooked. But in a situation where you'd expect noise to abound, to have silence, it's unavoidably noticable.

My mom was watching the weather... I live in a city about 45 minutes outside of Madison, one of Wisconsin's largest cities. They were saying that a man at the local mall was picking up falling debris... It was mail, actual letters, that were addressed with Madison addresses. Baseball cards, bills, letters... all of these things, the storm had picked up and carried with it. I guess 12 houses were ruined about a half an hour from here. They were showing 6 different tornadoes on the radar.

And yet, all we have is silence.

I suppose I should be grateful. I mean, I could have been one of those people who's house was destroyed. I'm not wishing for that by any means. The wind has started to pick up a little, but still, now that it is dark, you would never know that there was a storm coming. It's silent, and still. I hope to see a great light show and the mighty roar of the sky, but that may just not happen. For now, I'll just continue to sit by my window, and let the pre-storm atmosphere linger in my room...

I'll try to post a picture later on this evening, and let you know if the storm ever unleashed it's wrath.