As I stand at my desk, looking at the distant reflection of color that is all I can see of the outside world from the part of my employer’s building I work in, I can’t help but think of last year’s torrential storms and the hour and a half I spent stuck in a bathroom, waiting for the tornado warnings to clear. The storm now distending the sky, wrapping it unevenly in darkness long before the sun is due to set, will not be as fierce as the storm last year that left me without power and anxious about something entirely new after I finally made it home between tornado warnings. Even if the weather reports can no longer be trusted as much as they once could, I’ve spent my life watching for storms of all kinds. I know when one is coming by the way the air feels on my skin, by how the temperature and pressure change, by how the wind blows and the various layers of clouds move relative to each other. I studied a lot of meteorology as a child, with the same fervor as I once studied trains and Richard Scarry’s books, but only because I once got surprised while hiding from my family in the woods by a torrential storm. Sure, the science of it all was interesting, as were the remote and–in my eyes–exciting places such science got done, but I was looking for practical lessons and I learned them well enough that they serve me still. I can’t tell exactly when the storm will happen, but I can tell that it will and how bad it will be.
Continue readingStorms
Spring Is Here To Stay And Other Weather Musings
After a bunch of temperatures bouncing between the sixties and freezing, the forecast has finally shifted into some proper spring weather. Some looming storms, days rising into the sixties and then falling into the forties overnight, an occasional day or two in the seventies, and some nice windy days. I’m looking forward to the weather continuing to improve, even if I can’t go on my walks at noon anymore because I get sunburn far too easily thanks to one of the medications I’m on (and will hopefully be off in another month or so). It’s nice to not have to run my heat or AC, to be able to leave my windows open all day long, and to be able to go to work in shorts and a t-shirt. And sometimes a zip-up hoodie. But mostly the shorts and t-shirt. Throw in how nice it is to leave work at half past seven in the evening while still having enough sunlight that I don’t need to turn on my headlights during my drive home and I’m honestly pretty happy with the weather. Which, you know, won’t cure my depression or anything, but it’s still nice to have and definitely won’t hurt it. Its a nice little thing to have at the end of what have become incredibly long and exhausting days at work. Turns out that things haven’t really slowed down since a couple weeks ago and while I’m less emotionally and mentally stressed because the sheer volume of Things To Do is lower than it was back then, the physical stress of the labor required to test the project I’m mostly working on has picked up the slack. I wish I got to do this work while getting fresh air and not wearing a mask to protect myself from what one of my coworkers insists is “just some Spring sniffles,” but I’ve found other ways to extract some fun from the work I’m doing.
Continue readingEven The Most Violent Storms Make Me Feel At Peace
Content Warning for brief mentions of childhood trauma (abuse and neglect) toward the end.
Continue readingRecorded And Reposted: Majestic Weather
As the moon sits, fat and high,
I watch a battle of giants in the sky.
Flashes of light that make no sound
Miles and miles above the ground:
A tumultuous scene of Majestic Weather!
No fluffy clouds, light as a feather
Are these, but dark monstrosities
That dominate the sky, ignoring the breeze.
A scene of beauty like no other
Is the storm that decides to hover
On the horizon like a mountain silhouette,
But infinitely more of a looming threat.
Beauty and violence twisted together
Is this Queen of inclement weather!