And the thunder rolled

As it was nearing 11 o'clock last night I entered our bedroom to commence with the usual pre-bedtime rituals. Opening the window allows a cool breeze to moderate the heat of our un air-conditioned second floor, and is one of the night-time necessities of the summer months. I usually do not hear a voice speaking to me out of the dark when I do so, but last night I did. A voice, I thought, whispered my name from somewhere just outside the bedroom window. But because that seemed an unreasonable and unlikely reality, it took a second and louder whisper to assure me that it was a fact and not just a figment of my overactive imagination.

Because our usual late night visitors have long since moved away, I was momentarily bewildered as to who it was standing behind our house. This required a response from me to determine who it was creeping outside our window. Luckily it was friend not foe, and we were beckoned outside to share in the wild display of electrostatic-icity as it ripped across the sky.

It was lovely to experience the thunderstorm that way. Standing among friends barefoot in the grass with the warm night air brushing up against our bare skin, feeling as though we were sharing in some sort of magic the universe was offering up to us as a gift. The night sky was robed in clouds that were illuminated only as the cracks of lightning rolled across the valley, with the thunder chasing close behind it. It was a spectacle indeed. As, I am sure, were we, although of an entirely different sort.

We stood there in the dry desert air until the raindrops formed and drove us indoors. And then we drifted off to sleep as the light show continued on outside our window long into the night.

 

 

 

I've never shot lightning before - it was quite elusive. And like so many other natural wonders it just couldn't be captured properly. It only took about 70 shots to come up with these few of actual lightning, but here they are just the same. A glimpse of the lightning show to which we were lucky enough to have grade-A front row seats.