The Storm

It all started late last night.  The rain was pelting.  The wind was howling.  The weather was stewing with all the pent up ferocity of an atmospheric temper tantrum.

I lay in my bed, the covers tightly tucked under my chin.  Even from my cozy cocoon, the presence of the storm was powerfully intimate. I could almost feel the tempest pressing up against the window beside me.  The warmth of my covers felt heightened, juxtaposed against the shower soaked window.  I cracked the window slightly to better hear the rain. The poignant pitter-patter was strangely serene.

I lay my head back into the comfy confines of my pillow, listening to the rain-drop parade.  The winds and rain swelled together in alternating crescendo.  First a measure of relative calm.  Next a bar of vehement volume.  Then, right as the crescendo would approach near-uncomfortable levels, the storm would once again gradually subside.

The pattern of alternating crescendos continued, a torrential tide ebbing and flowing with rhythmic cadence, back and forth amidst the black backdrop of night.

I pulled the covers tighter.  Once again the winds and rains swelled with symphonic crescendo.  This time the crescendo sustained, a line of drummers striking with unrestrained vigor, struggling to maintain their loudest.  The tension mounted.  It felt as if something were about to burst.  Something had to give.  Then, it did.

The crescendo ended in emphatic crash, a pair of cymbals clanging together in the air.  A guttural rumble ripped through the house, traveling through the foundation and spreading up the walls, a thunderous sound felt as much as heard.  

Reflexively, I sat straight up in my bed, eyes and ears open.  My heart pounded.  My mind raced.  What was that?  Thunder?  Rare for Alaska.  An earthquake?  More common, but this seemed different.

I got out of my bed.  My feet hit the cold floor.  Slowly, one by one, lights came on in the pitch black house as the family congregated in the living room, curious.

We made our way toward the wrap-around-deck, the sound of the sliding glass door opening barely audible over the roar of wind and rain.  The deck lights sparsely illuminated the sheets of rain like an under-powered flashlight, barely piercing into the night.  There amidst the wind-tossed rain lay the tangled outline of a silhouette.

We ventured out further, arms hugged across chests for warmth.  There in a twisted mass of splintered wood and corrugated roofing lay the trunk of a tree, nearly completely horizontal.  The wet leaves and branches sprawled out across the deck haphazardly like a rag doll corpse.  The wind-whipped rain rolled down our faces and tugged at our hair as we pushed forward to examine the damage.

Soon it became clear.  Eyeing the length of the tree, we followed the trunk back.  Off in the distance, the base of the tree and roots were unscathed, still resiliently planted in the ground.  The tree hadn't simply fallen.  It had been snapped in half, violently cracked in two like a twig.  The top half of the tree had then careened into the deck, snapping the railing, downing the awning, and taking various chairs and deck ornaments with it, all in one thunderous, house-rumbling fall.

Coming back inside, we could still feel the weight of the wind pressing into the walls of the house.  We looked at each other and smiled nervously, but affectionately.  There's nothing quite like the shared midnight crisis of a storm to spark the bonds of family or renew your awe of nature.  Hugging, we went back to our beds thankful the tree was on the deck and not in the house.