I didn’t hear that first crack outside, my head ensconced in soundscapes drifting from old Audio-Technica headphones with the comfy grey memory foam as my mind was being laid bare by Baumeister, Bratslavsky, et al on their meta-analysis on bad being stronger than good.
The barreling of twins down the stairs in my peripheral vision did not rouse my suspicions until they crashed directly into me on the couch.
“IT’S RAINING OUTSIDE!” they both screamed, jumping up and down, giggling with delight as they collected their flailing excitement and ran to the front porch.
As I made way to the front door, I could here the laughter and comments riffing in between the steady taps of the burgeoning storm. “The drops are HUGE!” “It smells weird out here.” “Was that thunder?”
I stood on the front porch as they sprinted back towards the stairs, scampering upward back to their comfortable beds. The darkness of the night was soon broken with cracking streaks of lightning, the brightness soon diffused by layers of tinged brown clouds.
A summer storm was not all that rare in this part of the Central Valley in California growing up. Three storms appeared to pass like clockwork in July and August, breaking up the hot summers with downpours. The later summer storms always caused the most panic, my mother and father scrambling to cover farm equipment and harvest with tarps and plastic while my brother, sister, and I ran around in spite of very real danger that we’d be struck by a bolt from the heavens.
Rain today, in the climate changed California of 2021, is a rare sight not only this time of year but overall; extreme drought has made rain altogether nonexistent. The summer waves of heat that were tolerable as a child have become a suffocating reality with 27 days above 100° F (38° C) according to my little thermometer in the backyard this year. The smoke from the fires to the north make being outside a hazard, the air quality causing yet more issues. When the smoke clears there is little respite, the dust from the surrounding orchards soon taking its place at harvest time, the hullers piling shells higher than six story building.
“Looks like everyone came to see the show,” my wife said standing looking into the distance. Neighbors each gathered on their respective porches now, staring towards the sky silently as the rain drops continued to fall. Thunder grumbled in the distance as the storm continued it’s eastward charge to the Sierra Nevada.
“You think that lightning dies out before it reaches the Yosemite?”
We both looked at each other and knew the brief respite of the summer storm was over and wandered back into the house, numb for yet another devastating fire that we hoped would not come.