made me do it

Tonight I went outside to perform the most mundane of household tasks—taking out the garbage. As I dropped the bags on the small parcel of grass, a flash of light high above me and far away from me caught my eye. In the sky was this enormous, dense, white cloud. And within that cloud was a grand finale of lightning strikes. The strikes did not light up the sky for they were too far away, but they illuminated the cloud from within. I pulled out my phone and stood there in the parking lot trying to capture the beauty of something I’m not sure I’ve seen before. It was a storm that had already moved overhead. I was able to watch it unleash it wrath upon itself, at least, and maybe upon another cluster of homes and communities. People drove by as the last bit of dusk was snuffed from the horizon and looked at me, this nut, standing in near darkness videoing something in the sky. Sadly, if they were watching me, they missed the beauty I saw.

So this is the kind of person I am… I search for rainbows whenever it’s raining on one side of me and sunny on the other. I find the moon in the sky every night to see what it looks like and how it’s different from last night or even a few hours earlier. I notice the subtle changes in colors of green grass, red and yellow tulips as early spring gives way to warmth and sunshine. I get genuinely excited when the bright green leaves of summer begin to turn fiery shades of red and orange and yellow. I look into the evening sky to see the stars and the sky’s gradient change from daylight blue to midnight black.

[Lightning lighting from within… Taken on Thursday, July 29, 2010, around 9pm.]