Summer lightning

I love storms. The wild and windy ones that you draw the curtains against but can still hear beating the window panes into submission. The heavy downpour ones where you can lie awake for hours on end listening to the rain on the roof (especially handy if you have, like I had for most of my childhood, an attic bedroom with a sloping roof). And, the case in point at the moment, the eerily silent ones. Where the wind has dropped, the night is silent as can be and you can watch the clouds light up over the horizon but still not hear a thing. Today has been a lovely, warm, summers day. Even before the clouds rolled in this evening we heard far off rumbles of thunder, an ominous sound when the sky is still blue. Now, sitting in a darkened room, I'm occasionally lit by those massive bursts of silent lightning way over the other side of the valley. It's still warm though. At times like this, I'm reminded of sitting on the veranda watching the flashing clouds roll in after a muggy day in Central Victoria. And I miss it. There's also an earlier memory though, underlying everything. Me, with my skylight open, perched on the end of my bed leaning out as far as I can, watching the storms on the mountains opposite. And when I'm not here I miss that too. But I know that whatever happens, wherever I go, storms are storms and they are amazing. I find them endlessly enthralling and that will not change.