Stormy Weather
At six, eight, ten, thirteen, I was not afraid of storms, and even loved the electric crackle of lightning, and the distant (and not-so-distant) booming of thunder, which I imagined as a conversation among mythic figures, like the Greek gods and goddesses I read about in stories. As recently as 2019, I got excited when a storm bore my name, though of course I feel horrible about the damage caused by Hurricane Melissa, especially in the Carolinas.
It wasn’t until recently, as I was watching my mother react to a severe storm warning notification, that I recognized that my grandmother hadn’t been so much trying to keep my (non-existent) storm fears at bay as allaying her own.
