Waiting Out the Storm

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The unfamiliar hum was one I couldn’t place as was the gentle rocking motion that followed. I did not rock back and forth as if a grandmom was rocking a treasured grandchild to sleep. The too and fro, left and right and back again, left me puzzled but not disconcerted. I was a small child. This much I knew. Unafraid but uneasy. Waiting. Watching. For what?

I squinted trying to catch a glimpse through the darkness of time and space. A yellow bulb swayed above my head. Its narrow arc illuminated the quiet faces staring back across the space. Wide eyes. Taught faces. Watching. Waiting. For what?

Was it real? Was it a dream? Was it me? Where was I heading, and who was with me? The curtain of time would shift and with it my ability to grasp the sounds and sights I could not chase. They were gone almost before they began. Oh, the agony.

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Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Before my foot hit the top step as I headed out into the yard this morning, I could feel the world holding its collective breath. The quiet, so calm it was eerie, startled me. There was no hum of air conditioners. No dogs barked. The silence was disorienting.

I paused a minute trying to get my bearings. Was it as quiet as I thought? Even the breeze, strong enough to lift a strand of hair from my face, failed to trigger the sound of rustling leaves. I looked up and noted the absence of birds calling or darting from one tree to another.

Humidity's grasp was not so much a grasping claw as it was a limp and worn out handshake. An industrial shop vacuum was at work sucking all the available moisture from the air to deposit it in another place. The sky was blue. Clear and cloudless blue. With each breath I took, the air became lighter and drier.

I stood and looked around me savoring the silence and stillness. Closing my eyes, I waited for the silent slip of a breeze to carry me away. The curtain of time lifted taking me back where I had been. The storm had passed, and my mom, brother, sister and I were being evacuated. The yellow bulb began to sway. The hum became insistent until it was a roar that vibrated my soul.

My brother told me. The images were not some wild dream or mirage conjured up by a wanna-be writer's overly active imagination. They were long lost friends from a time gone by. My memories were true.

Little Girl Me

I am no longer puzzled by their fleeting return. I only wish to hold them longer. For to me, they are little girl magic. The big people realities of all that was transpiring was lost on me then. When the curtain of times lifts, it is still magic.

I opened the door this morning to find the little girl me waiting. Even without the weather forecasters, I would have known there was a storm a-brew. She scratches at my memories and reminds me of the calm before the storm.

The day moves me along, but I resist. I savor the feel of the air and the sense of light raining down around me from the cloudless sky. I am hours and hours and hundreds of miles away from where Isaac will make landfall. And yet, I feel him coming even from here.

I wait. I watch. I check in with friends knowing that for them, the storm will not be little girl magic. It will be anything from a happy and unexpected day off suitable for a party to a life altering event. I watch and wait knowing I have friends whose faces are taught with tension as they ride it out wondering what the morning will bring.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The little girl in me gives way to the adult who now understands the reality of the bare yellow bulb and the faces staring back at me. I breathe a prayer knowing the waiting, watching, and uncertainty is bone crunching. God speed to all who are waiting. May you have peace, rest, and safety as the storm passes by.

Love you long and strong. See you after the storm.

Courtesy B. Creasy 2010

Amos 4: 13 (Amplified Bible) For behold, He Who forms the mountains and creates the wind and declares to man what is his thought, Who makes the morning darkness and treads on the heights of the earth—the Lord, the God of hosts, is His name!