Change in the Weather

We haven't had a drop of rain in almost a week, though the storms keep passing by to the north or south or east or west, taunting us with the electricity in the air and the faint hope of a change in the weather. It's not been hot enough to really be worthwhile, that kind of satisfying world-destroying heat you get in the end of summer, when all anyone can do is sit around and complain about the heat and speculate about the egg-frying capacity of the hood of the car, but it's been far too sticky and uncomfortable to make getting out of the house an enjoyable experience.

I gave up this evening; the constantly changing fronts and the oppressive recycled quality of the air conditioning drove me outside, in spite of the heat. Warm, almost comfortable outside after the air conditioning, but ten feet from the door I was already regretting wearing jeans instead of a skirt, for all going for a walk in a skirt is both uncomfortable and slightly odd. I went on anyway; had to find some way of working the extra energy out of my system if the weather wasn't going to break and do it for me. I've always loved the start of a storm, the bigger the better. The tension builds as the sky changes color, to finally be broken by lightning that seems all the brighter for the unnatural dark in the middle of the afternoon. Everything relaxes after a storm in a way that just isn't possible before it happens.

Hot and sticky an hour later, with my knee giving me warning that it wouldn't be happy with me tomorrow if I kept on (injury from high school marching band, no, don't laugh, the way my director wrote drill it was nearly as dangerous as football), I had to have a shower when I got home. As I turned off the water the sound of it falling didn't stop so much as shift -- and as I stepped to the window the thunder cracked. It was pouring, and other walkers with timing less precise than mine were running for shelter all down the street, even as the limp flowers in front gardens started to perk up.

Ten minutes later as I post this, the thunder's mostly stopped and the rain has settled down to a light shower; it'll go on like this for another half-hour at most, and then next week it'll do the same, and the next, until it dries up almost completely in August and starts getting more dramatic about things. It's the combination of predictability and unpredictability in the weather that I love so much about the Midwest. It'll do the same things, in the same ways, over and over again, but you can never be sure when the tension is finally going to snap.