Thursday, July 07, 2005
Super Soaker
Morida: here’s another tidbit from my vacation in Florida, and one of the few site-specific things I wrote there. Tomorrow I’ll start in on some fiction, but meantime these are some words about a storm that cleansed and galvanized me. Maybe South Florida is used to this kind of weather but it was new for me and I was glad to witness it. So here it is for you, if you care to endure it. If not, well, dry up.
Mom had put on a disk of classic brazilian dance funk for us and I was just settling in with my notebook when the humidity, up in the 90s all day long, finally hit 100 and the heavens poured down. “There’s some real Florida rain for you,” mom said, and I peered out the sliding door to see the surface of the nearby lake matted with fat droplets. I tried to write from inside on the couch for a few more minutes but couldn’t keep my eyes off the weather. It was pointless to deny: I had to step out to the balcony and experience the storm.
The balcony is about six by six, so I pulled the woven deck chair and footstool away from the edge to get a dry vantage. Water filled the sky, falling heavily, sraight down. Green berries on a nearby tree each gathered rain in crystal globes that seemed to hang impossibly long before dropping off and immediately re-forming. A narrow lawn stretched before me, bordered with a dense hibiscus hedge, against which a lone muscovy took sodden shelter. Beyond the hedge, a concrete path cut across the fairway of the 18th hole of a beautifully-maintained golf course, the macadam track shimmering silver in the downpour, water streaming off it like an arroyo in flashflood; next to it, a small sand trap soaked up rain till it puddled in long snakes of water. Occasionally, magpies flitted from shelter to new boughs in different trees, or peeked into the open end of a metal beam atop a nearby high-tension utility pole; another bird must have already taken shelter there because each time they merely peered in and then flew back away, seeking protection from the cloudburst elsewhere.
Heavy curtains of rain obscured the large, densely-leaved trees on the other side of the waterhazard pond; palms drooped against the weather, already limplooking from all the wet stuff they’d endured over the prior fortnight of rain. As lightning began to make shockingly close strikes, slithering quickly up to the clouds to illuminate the overcast landscape, a few rogue golfers began to scoot their electric carts quickly along the nearly-submerged asphalt strand back to the clubhouse, enormous umbrellas with cheerful white-and-blue stripes unfurled and stuck out the side, the carts kicking up fantails as they cornered in ungainly haste like overfed chickens on speed. The thunder, nearly instantaneously accompanying the lightning strikes, exploded as if it were ordnance, a booming crack that felt inordinately close and then trailed off into rolling growls and roars that roamed the wide flat landscape.
After several dozen flashes and blasts of stormy electricity and deafening sound, the view of the distant trees began to resolve a little. Individual raindrops filled the air, rather than a vision of barely-aerated water. The sky began to lighten - very slightly, but steadily. A covey of pidgeons burst, cooing, from some unseen roost to another; a gallinule strutted into the bunker and started poking around for something edible that might have been washed up out of the sand.... A green heron flew up from the lakeshore reeds, curving gracefully under the low golfcart bridge, and finally the muscovy by the hibiscus raised its head, shook itself out briefly, and slowly waddled out into the grass, tottering on wide feet, nosing around for supper. The storm was spent. I went back inside and watched the news.
This is a highly reduced panoramic photo of my mom’s view, from where I saw the storm rage. And since there’s no good time or way to say it, the raging of storms is as appropriate a segue as any to take a moment to express my deep sympathy, condolences, and solidarity with those who have today been victimized by bombings in london. May we all only be hearing the thunder when we hear thunder, and may the rain that washes down on us cleanse and revive us.